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LIBRARY 


The  Glenn  Negley  Collection 
of  Utopian  Literature 


■f'W: 


THE   NEW    REPUBLIC 

OR 

CULTURE,  FAITH,  AND  PHILOSOPHY  IN  AN  ENGLISH  COUNTRY  HOUSE 

BY 

W.    H.   MALLOCK 

AU  rHOK    1)1-"     '  THE    NEW    PAUL    ANU    VIRGINIA  '    ETC. 


ndt/TU  -yeAws-  nal  navrn  Kovis  naX  Travra  to  ju,r;5eV, 
Uavra  yap  e^  aXoyaii'  ecrrl  ra  yiyvofxeva 

Greek  Authoiogy 


A    iVElV    EDIT/ON 

NEW   YORK 
SCRIBNER     AND     WELFORD 

1880 


Digitized  by  tine  Internet  Arciiive 
in  2010  witii  funding  from 
Duke  University  Libraries 


littp://www.arcliive.org/details/newrepublicoOOmall 


TO 

'VIOLET    FANE' 

AUTHORESS    OF 
'ANTHONY   BABINGTON  '    'THE   QUEEN    OF   THE   FAIRIES  '   ETC. 

t^is  |]ook  is  Inscribti) 

BY    HER    SINCERE    FRIEND 
THE  AUTHOR 


THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 


BOOK  I. 

CHAPTER    I. 

;OWARDS  the  close  of  last  July, 
when  the  London  season  was  fast 
dying  of  the  dust,  Otho  Laurence 
had  invited  what  the  Morning 
Post  called  '  a  select  circle  of  friends,'  to 
spend  a  quiet  Sunday  with  him  at  his  cool 
villa  by  the  sea. 

This  singular  retreat  was  the  work  of 
a  very  singular  man,  Otho  Laurence's  uncle, 
who  had  squandered  on  it  an  immense 
fortune,  and  had  designed  it  as  far  as  possible 
to  embody  his  own  tastes  and  character. 
He  was  a  member  of  a  Tory  family  of  some 
note,  and  had  near  relations  in  both  Houses  of 
Parliament ;  but  he  was  himself  possessed  of 
a  deep  though  quiet  antipathy  to  the  two 
things  generally  most  cherished  by  those  of 

B 


2  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

his  time  and  order,  the  ideas  of  Christianity 
and  FeudaHsm  ;  and  he  studiously  kept 
himself  clear  of  all  public  life.  Pride  of 
birth,  indeed,  he  had  in  no  small  measure  ; 
but  it  was  the  pride  of  a  Roman  of  the 
Empire  rather  than  of  an  Englishman ;  a 
pride  which,  instead  of  connecting  him  with 
prince  or  people,  made  him  shun  the  one  as 
a  Caesar,  and  forget  the  other  as  slaves.  All 
his  pleasures  were  those  of  a  lettered 
voluptuary,  who  would,  as  he  himself  said, 
have  been  more  in  place  under  Augustus  or 
the  Antonines  ;  and  modern  existence,  under 
most  of  its  aspects,  he  affected  to  regard  as 
barbarous.  Next  to  a  bishop,  the  thing  he 
most  disliked  was  a  courtier  ;  next  to  a 
courtier,  a  fox-hunting  country  gentleman. 
But  nothing  in  his  life,  perhaps,  was  so 
characteristic  of  him  as  his  leaving  of  it. 
During  his  last  hours  he  was  soothed  by  a 
pretty  and  somewhat  educated  housemaid, 
whom  he  called  Phyllis,  and  whom  he  made 
sit  by  his  bedside,  and  read  aloud  to  him  Gib- 
bon's two  chapters  on  Christianity.  Phyllis 
had  just  come  to  the  celebrated  excerpt 
from  Tertullian,  in  which  that  father  con- 
templates the  future  torments  of  the  unbe- 
lievers, w'hen  the  parish  clergyman,  who  had 
been  sent  for  by  Mr.  Laurence's  widowed 
sister-in-law,    arrived   to   offer    his   services. 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  I.  3 

*  How  shall  I  admire '  ^ — these  were  the  words 
that,  read  in  a  low  sweet  tone,  first  greeted 
his  ears  when  he  was  shown  softly  into  the 
sick  chamber — '  how  shall  I  admire,  how 
laugh,  how  rejoice,  how  exult,  when  I  behold 
so  many  proud  monarchs,  so  many  fancied 
gods,  groaning  in  the  lowest  abyss  of  dark- 
ness ;  so  many  magistrates  who  persecuted 
the  name  of  the  Lord,  liquefying  in  a  fiercer 
fire  than  ever  they  kindled  against  the  Chris- 
tians ! '  The  clergyman  was  at  first  much 
reassured  at  hearing  words  so  edifying  ;  but 
when  he  turned  to  old  Mr.  Laurence,  he  was 
dismayed  to  see  on  his  pale  face,  no  signs  of 
awe,  but  only  a  faint  smile,  full  of  sarcastic 
humour.  He  therefore  glanced  at  the  book 
that  was  lying  on  the  girl's  lap,  and  dis- 
covered to  his  horror  the  work  of  the  infidel 
historian.  He  was  at  first  struck  dumb ; 
but,  soon  recovering  himself,  began  to  say 
something  suitable  at  once  to  his  own  pro- 
fession and  to  the  sick  man's  needs.  Mr. 
Laurence  answered  him  with  the  greatest 
courtesy,  but  with  many  thanks  declined  any 
assistance  from  him  ;  saying  wistfully  that  he 
knew  he  had  not  long  to  live,  and  that  his 
one  wish  was  that  he  could  open  his  veins  in 


*  Vide  Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall^  chapter  xv. 

B  2 


4  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

a  bath,  and  so  fade  gently  into  death ;  *  and 
then,'  he  added,  '  my  soul,  if  I  have  one, 
might  perhaps  be  with  Petronius,  and  with 
Seneca.  And  yet  sleep  would,  I  think,  be 
better  than  even  their  company.'  The  poor 
clergyman  bade  a  hasty  adieu,  and  Phyllis 
resumed  her  reading.  Mr.  Laurence  listened 
to  every  word  :  the  smile  returned  to  his 
lips  that  had  for  a  moment  left  them,  and 
was  still  upon  them  when,  half-an-hour  after- 
wards, he  died,  so  quietly  that  Phyllis  did 
not  perceive  it,  but  continued  her  read- 
ing for  some  time  to  ears  that  could  hear 
nothinof. 

All  his  property  he  left  to  his  nephew 
Otho,  including  his  splendid  villa,  which 
was  indeed,  as  it  was  meant  to  be,  a  type  of 
its  builder.  It  was  a  house  of  pillars,  porti- 
coes, and  statues,  designed  ambitiously  in 
what  was  meant  to  be  a  classical  style ;  and 
though  its  splendours  might  not  be  all  per- 
haps in  the  best  taste,  nor  even  of  the  most 
strictly  Roman  pattern,  there  was  yet  an  air 
about  its  meretricious  stateliness  by  which  the 
days  of  the  Empire  were  at  once  suggested 
to  one,  a  magnificence  that  would  at  any  rate 
have  pleased  Trimalcio,  though  it  might  have 
scandalised  Horace. 

Otho  Laurence  inherited  with  his  uncle's 


BOOK^  I.     CHAPTER  I.  5 

house  something  of  the  tastes  and  feelings  of 
which  it  was  the  embodiment.     But,  though 
an  epicure  by  training  and  by  temper,  he  had 
been  open   to  other  influences  as  well.     At 
one   time   of  his  life    he   had,    as    it    is    ex- 
pressed by  some,   experienced  religion  ;  and 
not  religion  only,  but  thought  and  specula- 
tion also.     Indeed,  ever  since  he  was  twenty- 
four,  he  had  been  troubled  by  a  painful  sense 
that  he  ought  to  have  some  mission  in  life. 
The    only   difficulty  was  that  he  could   find 
none  that  would  suit  him.      He  had  consider- 
able natural  powers,  and  was  in  many  ways 
a  remarkable  man ;    but,    unhappily,  one   of 
those  who  are  remarkable  because  they  do 
not   become   famous,    not   because   they  do. 
He  was  one  of  those  of  whom  it  is  said  till 
they  are  thirty,  that  they  will  do  something  ; 
till  they  are  thirty-five,  that  they  might  do 
something  if  they  chose  ;  and  after  that,  that 
they  might  have  done  anything  if  they  had 
chosen.     Laurence   was   as   yet   only   three 
years  gone  in  the  second  stage,  but  such  of 
his  friends  as  were  ambitious  for  him  feared 
that  three  years  more  would  find  him  landed 
in   the   third.     He,    too,    was   beginning   to 
share   this    fear ;     and,    not    being    humble 
enough   to   despair   of  himself,   was  by  this 
time   taking  to  despair  of  his  century.     He 


6  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

was  thus  hardly  a  happy  man ;  but,  like 
many  unhappy  men,  he  was  capable  of  keen 
enjoyments.  Chief  amongst  these  was  so- 
ciety in  certain  forms,  especially  a  party  in 
his  own  house,  such  as  that  which  he  had 
now  assembled  there.  To  this  one  in  parti- 
cular he  looked  forward  with  more  than  usual 
pleasure,  partly  because  of  the  peculiar 
elements  which  he  had  contrived  to  combine 
in  it,  but  chiefly  because  amongst  them  was 
to  be  his  friend  Robert  Leslie,  who  had 
been  living  abroad,  and  whom  he  had  not 
seen  for  two  years. 

Laurence's  aunt.  Lady  Grace,  helped  to 
receive  the  guests,  who  by  dinner-time  on 
Saturday  evening  had  all  arrived.  Robert 
Leslie  was  the  last.  The  dressing-bell  had 
just  done  ringing  as  he  drove  up  to  the 
door,  and  the  others  had  already  gone  up- 
stairs ;  but  he  found  Laurence  in  the  library, 
sitting  with  his  head  on  his  hand,  and  a 
pile  of  menu-zd.xA'^  on  the  desk  before  him. 
The  two  friends  met  with  much  warmth,  and 
then  examined  each  other's  faces  to  see  if 
either  had  changed. 

'You  told  me  you  had  been  ill,'  said 
Laurence,  having  again  looked  at  Leslie, 
*  and  I  am  afraid  you  don't  seem  quite  well 
yet.' 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  I.  7 

'  You  forget/  said  Leslie,  whose  laugh 
was  a  little  hollow,  '  that  I  was  on  the  sea  six 
hours  ago ;  and,  as  you  know,  I  am  a 
wretched  sailor.  But  the  worst  of  human 
maladies  are  the  most  transient  also — love 
that  is  half  despairing,  and  sea-sickness  that 
is  quite  so.' 

*  I  congratulate  you,'  said  Laurence,  again 
examining  his  friend's  face,  '  on  your  true 
cynical  manner.  I  often  thought  we  might 
have  masters  In  cynicism  just  as  we  have 
masters  in  singing.  Perhaps  I  shall  be  able 
to  learn  the  art  from  you.' 

'  Oh  ! '  said  Leslie,  '  the  theory  is  simple 
enough.  Find  out,  by  a  little  suffering,  what 
are  the  things  you  hold  most  sacred,  and 
most  firmly  believe  In,  and,  whenever  an 
occasion  offers,  deny  your  faith.  A  cynic  is 
a  kind  of  inverted  confessor,  perpetually 
making  enemies  for  the  sake  of  what  he 
knows  to  be  false.' 

'  x'\h  ! '  said  Laurence,  '  but  I  don't  want 
theory.  I  know  what  is  sacred  just  as  well 
as  you,  and,  when  I  am  beast  enough  to  be 
quite  out  of  tune  with  It,  I  have  the  good 
sense  to  call  it  a  phantom.  But  I  don't 
do  this  with  sufficient  energy.  It  is  skill  in 
cynical  practice  I  want — a  lesson  In  the 
pungent  manner — the  bitter  tone ' 


THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  Then  please  not  to  take  your  lessons 
from  me,'  said  Leslie.  '  Imitation  may  be 
the  sincerest  flattery,  but  it  is,  of  all,  the  most 
irritating-  :  and  a  cynic,  as  you  are  good 
enough  to  call  me,  feels  this  especially.  For 
a  cynic  is  the  one  preacher,  remember,  that 
never  wants  to  make  converts.  His  aim  is 
to  outrage,  not  to  convince  :  to  create  enemies, 
not  to  conquer  them.  The  peculiar  charm 
that  his  creed  has  for  him,  is  his  own  pecu- 
liarity in  holding  it.  He  is  an  acid  that  can 
only  fizz  with  an  alkali,  and  he  therefore  hates 
in  others  what  he  most  admires  in  himself. 
So  if  you  hear  me  say  a  bitter  thing,  please 
be  good  enough  to  brim  over  immediately 
with  the  milk  of  human  kindness.  If  I  say 
anything  disrespectful  about  friendship,  please 
be  good  enough  to  look  hurt ;  and  if  I  happen 
to  say — what  is  the  chief  part  of  the  cynic's 
stock-in-trade — that  no  woman  was  ever 
sincere  or  faithful,  I  trust  you  have  some 
lady  amongst  your  visitors  who  will  look  at 
me  with  mournful  eyes,  and  say  to  me,  "Ah, 
if  you  did  but  know  !  "  ' 

'  Well,'  said  Laurence,  *  perhaps  I  have  ; 
but,  talking  of  what  people  are  to  say,  I  have 
something  here  about  which  I  want  you  to 
help  me.  You  see  these  cards ;  they  are  all 
double.     Now  that  second  half  is  for  some- 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  1.  9 

thing  quite  new,  and  of  my  own  invention. 
The  cook  has  written  his  part  already,  so  you 
need  not  look  so  alarmed  ;  but  he  has  only 
provided  for  the  tongue  as  a  tasting  instru- 
ment ;  I  am  going  to  provide  for  it  as  a  talk- 
ing one.  In  fact,  I  am  going  to  have  dimeittc 
for  the  conversation,  and  to  this  I  shall  make 
everyone  strictly  adhere.  For  it  has  always 
seemed  absurd  to  me  to  be  so  careful  about 
what  we  put  into  our  mouths,  and  to  leave 
chance  to  arrange  what  comes  out  of  them  ; 
to  be  so  particular  as  to  the  order  of  what  we 
eat,  and  to  have  no  order  at  all  in  what  we 
talk  about.  This  is  the  case  especially  in 
parties  like  the  present,  where  most  of  the 
people  know  each  other  only  a  little,  and  if 
left  to  themselves  would  never  touch  on  the 
topics  that  would  make  them  best  acquainted, 
and  best  bring  out  their  several  personal 
flavours.  That  is  what  I  like  to  see  conversa- 
tion doing.  I  ought  to  have  written  these 
mentis  before  ;  but  I  have  been  busy  all  day, 
and,  besides,  I  wanted  you  to  help  me.  I 
was  just  beginning  without  you  when  you 
arrived,  as  I  could  wait  no  longer  ;  but  I  have 
put  down  nothing  yet :  indeed  I  could  not  fix 
upon  the  first  topic  that  is  to  correspond  with 
the  soup — the  first  vernal  breath  of  discussion 
that   is   to   open   the   buds  of  the   shy  and 


lo  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

Strange  souls.  So  come,  now — what  shall 
we  begin  with  ?  What  we  want  is  something 
that  anyone  can  talk  easily  about,  whether 
he  knows  anything  of  it  or  not — something, 
too,  that  may  be  treated  in  any  way,  either 
with  lauQfhter,  feelinc:,  or  even  a  little  touch 
of  temper.' 

'  Love,'  suggested  Leslie. 

'  That  is  too  strong  to  begin  with,'  said 
Laurence,  '  and  too  real.  Besides,  introduced 
in  that  way,  it  would  be,  I  think,  rather  com- 
mon and  vulgar.  No — the  only  thing  that 
suQfeested  itself  to  me  was  reliq-ion.' 

'  Nothing  could  be  better  in  some  ways,* 
said  Leslie  ;  '  but  might  not  that,  too,  be 
rather  strong  meat  for  some  ?  I  apprehend, 
like  Bottom,  that  "the  ladies  might  be  afeared 
of  the  lion."  I  should  suggest  rather  the 
question,  "Are  you  High-church  or  Low- 
church  ? "  There  is  something  in  that 
which  at  once  disarms  reverence,  and  may 
also  just  titillate  the  interests,  the  temper, 
or  the  sense  of  humour.  Quick,'  he  said, 
taking  one  of  the  cards,  '  and  let  us  begin  to 
write.' 

'  Stop,'  said  Laurence ;  *  not  so  fast,  let 
me  beg  of  you.  Instead  of  religion,  or  any- 
thing connected  with  it,  we  will  have,  '  What 
is  the  Aim  of  Life  ? '     Is  not  this  the  thing 


BOOK  1.     CHAPTER  I.  u 

of  things  to  suit  us  ?  About  what  do  we 
know  less  or  talk  more  ?  There  is  a  Sphinx 
in  each  of  our  souls  that  is  always  asking  us 
this  riddle  ;  and  when  we  are  lazy  or  disap- 
pointed, we  all  of  us  lounge  up  to  her,  and 
make  languid  guesses.  So  about  this  we 
shall  all  of  us  have  plenty  to  say,  and  can  say 
it  in  any  way  we  like,  flippant,  serious,  or 
sentimental.  Think,  too,  how  many  avenues 
of  thought  and  feeling  it  opens  up  !  Evidently 
the  ''Aim  of  Life"  is  the  thing  to  begin 
with.' 

Leslie  assented  ;  and  before  many  minutes 
they  had  made  the  memi.  complete. 

The  '  Aim  of  Life  '  was  to  be  followed  by 
'  Town  and  Country,'  which  was  designed 
to  introduce  a  discussion  as  to  where  the 
Aim  of  Life  was  to  be  best  attained.  After 
this,  by  an  easy  transition;  came  '  Society ; ' 
next  by  way  of  entries,  '  Art  and  Literature,' 
'  Love  and  Money,'  '  Riches  and  Civilisa- 
tion ; '  then  '  The  Present,'  as  something  solid 
and  satisfying  ;  and  lastly,  a  light  superfluity 
to  dally  with,  brighdy  coloured  and  unsub- 
stantial, with  the  e7itreinets  came  '  The 
Future.' 

'  And  who  is  here,'  said  Leslie,  as  they 
were  ending  their  labours,  '  to  enjoy  this  feast 
of  reason  ? ' 


12  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  I  will  tell  you,'  said  Laurence.  '  In  the 
first  place,  there  is  Lady  Ambrose,  a  woman 
of  a  very  old  but  poor  family,  who  has 
married  a  modern  M.P.  with  more  than  a 
million  of  money.  She  is  very  particular 
about  knowing  the  right  people,  and  has 
lovely,  large  grey  eyes.  Then  there  is  Miss 
Merton,  a  Roman  Catholic  young  lady,  the 
daughter  of  old  Sir  Ascot  Merton,  the  horse- 
racing  evangelical.  I  knew  her  well  five 
years  ago,  but  had  not  seen  her  since  her 
conversion,  till  to-day.  Then  we  have  Dr. 
Jenkinson,  the  great  Broad-church  divine  who 
thinks  that  Christianity  is  not  dead,  but 
changed  by  himself  and  his  followers  in  the 
twinkling  of  an  eye.' 

'  I  met  Dr.  Jenkinson,'  said  Leslie,  'just 
before  I  went  abroad,  at  a  great  dinner  given 
by  Baron  Isaacs,  in  honour  of  his  horse  hav- 
ing won  the  Derby.  Well — and  who  else  is 
there  ? ' 

*  Two  celebrated  members  of  the  Royal 
Society,'  said    Laurence ;    *  no   less   persons 

than But,  good  gracious !  it  is  time  we 

were  up-stairs  dressing.  Come  along  directly, 
and  I  will  explain  the  other  people  to  you 
before  dinner.' 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  11.  13 


CHAPTER    II. 

■T  was  half-past  eight,  and  the  party 
were  fast  assembling  in  the  twilight 
drawing-room.  Leslie  was  loung- 
ing in  one  of  the  windows,  by  a 
large  stand  of  flowers  and  broad-leaved  plants, 
and  was  studying  the  company  with  consider- 
able interest.  His  first  impression  was  of  little 
more  than  of  a  number  of  men's  dark  coats 
and  white  shirt-fronts,  tables,  couches,  and 
gilded  chairs,  and  the  pleasant  many-coloured 
glimmerings  of  female  apparel.  But  before 
long  he  had  observed  more  minutely.  There 
were  men  who  he  instinctively  felt  were 
celebrities,  discoursing  to  groups  of  ladies ; 
there  were  ladies  who  he  at  once  saw 
were  attractive,  being  discoursed  to  by 
groups  of  men.  He  very  soon  detected 
Lady  Ambrose,  a  fine  handsome  woman  of 
perhaps  thirty,  with  the  large  grey  eyes  of 
which  Laurence  had  spoken,  and  a  very 
clear  complexion,  Leslie  was  much  prepos- 
sessed  by    her   frank   manner,  and   by   her 


14  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 


charming  voice,  as  she  was  talking  with  some 
animation  to  a  tall  distinguished-looking 
young  man,  whose  fine  features,  keen  earnest 
glance,  and  thoughtful  expression  prepos- 
sessed him  still  more.  Forming  a  third  in 
this  group,  dropping  in  a  word  or  two  at 
intervals,  he  recognised  the  celebrated  Dr. 
Jenkinson — still  full  of  vigour,  though  his 
hair  was  silver — the  sharp  and  restless 
sparkle  of  whose  eyes,  strangely  joined  with 
the  most  benevolent  of  smiles,  Leslie  remem- 
bered to  have  noticed  at  Baron  Isaacs' 
festival.  He  had  just  identified  Lady 
Ambrose  and  the  Doctor,  when  Laurence 
came  up  to  him  in  the  window,  and  began  to 
tell  him  who  was  who. 

'  Dr.  Jenkinson  is  the  only  one  I  know,' 
said  Leslie,  *  and,  naturally  enough,  he  forgets 
me.' 

'  Well,'  said  Laurence,  '  that  man  by 
himself,  turning  over  the  books  on  the  table 
— the  man  with  the  black  whiskers,  spectacles, 
and  bushy  eyebrows — is  Mr.  Storks  of  the 
Royal  Society,  who  is  great  on  the  physical 
basis  of  life  and  the  imas^inative  basis  of 
God.  The  man  with  long  locks  in  the 
window,  explaining  a  microscope  in  so  eager 
a  way  to  that  dark-haired  girl,  is  Professor 
Stockton — of  the   Royal  Society  also ;    and 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  II.  15 

member  and  president  of  many  Societies 
more.  The  girl — child,  rather,  I  ought  to 
call  her — that  he  is  talking  to,  is  Lady  Violet 
Gresham — my  second  cousin.  You  see  my 
aunt,  the  old  lady  with  grey  curls,  on  the 
ottoman  near  the  fire-place  ?  Well — the 
supercilious-looking  man,  talking  rather 
loudly  and  rather  slowly  to  her  about  the 
dust  in  London,  is  Mr.  Luke,  the  great  critic 
and  apostle  of  culture.  That,  too,  is  another 
critic  close  by  him — the  pale  creature,  with 
large  moustache,  looking  out  of  the  window 
at  the  sunset.  He  is  Mr.  Rose,  the  pre- 
Raphaelite.  He  always  speaks  in  an  under- 
tone, and  his  two  topics  are  self-indulgence 
and  art.  The  young  man  there  with  Lady 
Ambrose  and  Dr.  Jenkinson,  is  Lord  Allen. 
He  is  only  two-  or  three-and-twenty ;  still, 
had  you  been  in  England  lately,  you  would 
often  have  heard  his  name.  He  has  come 
early  into  an  immense  property,  and  he  yet 
is  conscious  that  he  has  duties  in  life.  But/ 
said  Laurence,  sighing,  '  he  too  feels,  as  I  do, 
that  he  has  fallen  on  evil  days,  in  which 
there  can  be  no  peace  for  us — little  but 
doubt  and  confusion,  and  what  seems  to 
me  a  losing  battle  against  the  spiritual  dark- 
ness of  this  world.  However — that  red- 
headed youth   thinks  very  differently.     He 


i6  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

is  Mr.  Saunders  from  Oxford,  supposed  to  be 
very  clever  and  advanced.  Next  him  is 
Donald  Gordon,  who  has  deserted  deer-stalk- 
ing and  the  Kirk,  for  literature  and  German 
metaphysics.' 

'  And  who  is  that,'  said  Leslie,  '  the  young 
lady  with  those  large  and  rather  sad-looking 
eyes,  and  the  delicate,  proud  mouth  ?' 

'  Which  ? '  said  Laurence. 

*  The  one  on  the  sofa,'  said  Leslie,  '  who 
looks  so  like  a  Reynolds  portrait — like  a 
duchess  of  the  last  century — the  lady  in  the 
pale  blue  dress,  talking  to  that  man  with  such 
a  curiously  attractive  smile  and  the  worn 
melancholy  look  ? ' 

'  That,'  said  Laurence,  '  is  Miss  Merton. 
I  am  glad  you  admire  her.  And  don't  you 
know  who  it  is  she  is  talking  to  ?  He  is  al- 
most the  only  man  of  these  days  for  whom 
I  feel  a  real  reverence — almost  the  only  one 
of  our  teachers  who  seems  to  me  to  speak 
with  the  least  breath  of  inspiration.  But  he 
is  too  impressionable,  perhaps — too  much  like 
me,  in  that  wa)'.  And  now,  as  the  years 
come,  it  seems  that  hope  is  more  and  more 
leaving  him,  and  things  look  darker  to  him 
than  ever.     That  is  Herbert.' 

'  Herbert ! '  exclaimed  Leslie,  '  so  it  is.  I 
thought  I  recollected  the  face.     I  have  heard 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  11.  17 

him  lecture  several  times  at  the  Royal  Institu- 
tion ;  and  that  singular  voice  of  his,  which 
would  often  hold  all  the  theatre  breathless, 
haunts  me  still,  sometimes.  There  was  some- 
thing strange  and  aerial  in  its  exquisite  modula- 
tions, that  seemed  as  if  it  came  from  a  discon- 
solate spirit,  hovering  over  the  waters  of 
Babylon,  and  remembering  Sion.  I  can't  tell 
exactly  why  it  was  that — but,  ah  ! — my  dear 
Laurence — who  is  this,  that  is  coming  into 
the  room  now — this  lovely  creature,  with  a 
dress  like  a  red  azalea  ?  What  speaking 
eyes  !  And  what  hair,  too — deep  dead  black, 
with  those  white  starry  blossoms  in  it.  I 
don't  think  I  ever  saw  anyone  move  so 
gracefully  ;  and  how  proudly  and  piquantly 
she  poises 

On  her  neck  the  small  head  buoyant,  like  a  bell-flower 
on  its  bed  ! ' 

*  That,'  said  Laurence,  when  Leslie  had 
done,  '  is  Mrs.  Sinclair,  who  has  published  a 
volume  of  poems,  and  is  a  sort  of  fashionable 
London  Sappho.  But  come, — we  shall  be 
going  into  dinner  directly.  You  shall  have 
Lady  Ambrose  on  one  side  of  you,  and  shall 
take  in  Miss  Merton.' 


1 8  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 


CHAPTER    III. 

•AURENCE,  though  he  had  fore- 
warned his  guests  of  his  memc 
before  they  left  the  drawing-room, 
yet  felt  a  little  anxious  when  they 
sat  down  to  dinner ;  for  he  found  it  not  alto- 
gether easy  to  get  the  conversation  started. 
Lady  Ambrose,  who  was  the  first  to  speak, 
began  somewhat  off  the  point. 

'  What  a  charming  change  it  is,  Mr. 
Laurence,'  she  said,  '  to  look  out  on  the  sea 
when  one  is  dressing,  instead  of  across  South 
Audley  Street ! ' 

'  Hush ! '  said  Laurence  softly,  with  a 
grave,  reproving  smile. 

*  Really,' said  Lady  Ambrose,  *  I  beg  your 
pardon.  I  thought  Dr.  Jenkinson  had  said 
grace.' 

*  If  he  has,'  said  Laurence,  '  it  is  very 
good  of  him,  for  I  am  afraid  he  was  not 
asked.  But  what  I  mean  is,  that  you  must 
only  talk  of  what  is  on  the  cards  ;  so  be  good 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  TIL  19 

enough  to  look  at  your  memi,  and    devote 
your  attention  to  the  Aim  of  Life.' 

'  Really,  this  is  much  too  alarming,'  said 
Lady  Ambrose.  *  How  is  one  to  talk  at  so 
short  a  notice  on  a  subject  one  has  never 
thought  about  before  ?  ' 

*  Why,  to  do  so,'  said  Laurence,  '  is  the 
very  art  of  conversation  ;  for  in  that  way, 
one's  ideas  spring  up  fresh  like  young  roses 
that  have  all  the  dew  on  them,  instead  of 
having  been  kept  drying  for  half  a  lifetime 
between  the  leaves  of  a  book.  So  do  set  a 
good  example,  and  begin,  or  else  we  shall 
never  be  started  at  all ;  and  my  pet  plan  will 
turn  out  a  fiasco.' 

There  was,  indeed,  as  Laurence  said  this, 
something  very  near  complete  silence  all 
round  the  table.     It  was  soon  broken. 

'Are  you  High-church  or  Low-church?' 
was  a  question  suddenly  uttered  in  a  quick 
eager  girl's  voice  by  Miss  Prattle,  a  young 
lady  of  eighteen,  to  the  astonishment  of  the 
whole  company.  It  was  addressed  to  Dr. 
Jenkinson  who  was  sitting  next  her. 

Had  a  pin  been  run  into  the  Doctor's  leg, 
he  could  not  have  looked  more  astounded, 
or  given  a  greater  start.  He  eyed  his  fair 
questioner  for  some  time  in  complete  silence. 

'  Can   you   tell    me   the   difference  ? '    he 


20  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

said  at  last,  in  a  voice  of  considerable  good 
humour,  yet  with  just  a  touch  of  sharpness 
in  it. 

'  I  think,'  said  Miss  Merton,  who  was 
sitting  on  the  other  side  of  him,  '  that  my 
card  is  a  little  different.  I  have  the  "  Aim 
of  Life "  on  mine,  and  so  I  believe  has 
everybody  else.' 

'  Well,'  said  the  Doctor,  laughing,  '  let  us 
ask  Miss  Prattle  what  is  her  aim  in  life.' 

*  Thank  Heaven,'  said  Laurence,  '  Dr. 
Jenkinson  has  begun.  I  hope  we  shall  all 
now  follow.' 

Laurence's  hope  was  not  in  vain.  The 
conversation  soon  sprang  up  everywhere ; 
and  the  company,  though  in  various  humours, 
took  most  of  them  very  kindly  to  the  solemn 
topic  that  had  been  put  before  them.  Mr. 
Luke,  who  was  sitting  by  Mrs.  Sinclair,  was 
heard  in  a  loudish  voice  saying  that  his  own 
favourite  Muse  had  always  been  Erato  ;  Mr. 
Rose  had  taken  a  crimson  flower  from  a  vase 
on  the  table,  and,  looking  at  it  himself  with 
a  grave  regard,  was  pointing  out  its  infinite 
and  passionate  beauties  to  the  lady  next  him  ; 
and  Mr.  Stockton  was  explaining  that  the 
Alps  looked  grander,  and  the  sky  bluer  than 
ever,  to  those  who  truly  realised  the  atomic 
theory.     No  one,  indeed,  was  silent  except 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  21 

Mr.  Herbert  and  Mr.  Storks,  the  former  of 
whom  smiled  rather  sadly,  whilst  the  latter 
looked  about  him  with  an  inquisitorial  frown. 

Laurence  was  delighted  with  the  state  of 
things,  and  surveyed  the  table  with  great 
satisfaction.  Whilst  his  attention  was  thus 
engaged,  Lady  Ambrose  turned  to  Leslie, 
and  began  asking  him  if  he  had  been  in  town 
much  this  season.  She  was  taken  with  his 
look,  and  wished  to  find  out  if  he  would 
really  be  a  nice  person  to  like. 

'  Please,'  interposed  Laurence  pleadingly, 
*  do  try  and  keep  to  the  point — please.  Lady 
Ambrose.' 

'  I  want  to  find  out  Mr.  Leslie's  aim 
in  life  by  asking  him  where  he  has  been,'  she 
answered. 

'  I  have  been  in  a  great  many  places,'  said 
Leslie,  *  but  not  to  pursue  any  end — only  to 
try  and  forget  that  I  had  no  end  to  pursue.' 

*  This  is  a  very  sad  state  of  things,'  said 
Lady  Ambrose ;  '  I  can  always  find  some- 
thing to  do,  except  when  I  am  quite  alone,  or 
in  the  country  when  the  house  is  empty. 
And  even  then  I  can  make  occupation.  I 
draw,  or  read  a  book,  or  teach  my  little  boy 
some  lessons.  But  come — what  do  you  think 
is  the  real  aim  of  life  ? — since  that  is  what  I 
must  ask  him,  is  it  not,  Mr.  Laurence  ? ' 


22  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  Don't  ask  me,'  said  Leslie  ;  '  I  told  you 
I  hadn't  a  notion ;  and  I  don't  suppose  we 
any  of  us  have.' 

*  That  can't  be  true,'  said  Lady  Ambrose, 
'  for  just  listen  how  everyone  is  talking.  I 
wish  we  could  hear  what  they  are  saying. 
You  might  learn  something  then,  perhaps, 
Mr.  Leslie,  since  you  are  so  very  ignorant.' 

It  happened  that,  as  Lady  Ambrose  said 
this,  the  conversation  suddenly  flagged,  and 
Laurence  took  advantage  of  the  lull  to  ask  if 
any  satisfactory  conclusions  had  been  come 
to  during  the  past  five  minutes,  '  because  we 
up  here,'  he  said,  '  are  very  much  in  the  dark, 
and  want  to  be  enlightened.' 

*  Yes,'  said  Mr.  Storks  gruffly,  *  has  any 
one  found  out  what  is  the  aim  of  life  ? '  As 
he  said  this  he  looked  about  him  defiantly, 
as  though  all  the  others  were  butterflies,  that 
he  could  break,  if  he  chose,  upon  his  wheel. 
His  eye  at  last  lit  upon  Mr.  Saunders,  who, 
considering  this  a  challenge  to  himself,  im- 
mediately took  up  the  gauntlet.  The  young 
man  spoke  with  the  utmost  composure,  and, 
as  his  voice  was  high  and  piercing,  every- 
body could  hear  him. 

'  The  aim  of  life,'  he  said,  adjusting  his 
spectacles,  '  is  progress.' 

*  What    is    progress  ? '    interrupted    Dr. 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  23 

Jenkinson  coldly,  without  looking  at  Mr. 
Saunders,  and  as  though  any  answer  to  his 
question  was  the  last  thing  he  expected, 

'  Progress,'  replied  Mr.  Saunders  slowly, 
*  has  been  found,  like  poetry,  somewhat  hard 
to  define.' 

'Very  true,'  said  the  Doctor  drily,  and 
looking  straight  before  him. 

His  accents  were  of  so  freezing  a  sharp- 
ness that  he  seemed  to  be  stabbing  Mr. 
Saunders  with  an  icicle.  Mr.  Saunders, 
however,  was  apparendy  quite  unwounded. 

*  But  I,'  he  continued  with  the  utmost 
complacency,  '  have  discovered  a  definition 
which  will,  I  think,  meet  with  general  accept- 
ance. There  is  nothing  original  in  it — it  is 
merely  an  abstract  of  the  meaning  of  all  our 
great  liberal  thinkers — progress  is  such  im- 
provement as  can  be  verified  by  statistics, 
just  as  education  is  such  knowledge  as  can 
be  tested  by  examinations.  That,  I  conceive, 
is  a  very  adequate  definition  of  the  most 
advanced  conception  of  progress,  and  to 
persuade  people  in  general  to  accept  this  is  at 
present  one  of  the  chief  duties  of  all  earnest 
men.' 

'  Entirely  true  ! '  said  Mr.  Herbert,  with 
ironical  emphasis  ;  '  an  entirely  true  definition 
of  progress  as  our  age  prizes  it.' 


24  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

Mr.  Saunders  was  delighted,  and,  im- 
agining he  had  made  a  disciple,  he  turned  to 
Mr.  Herbert  and  went  on, 

'  For  just  let  us,'  he  said,  '  compare  a  man 
with  a  gorilla,  and  see  in  what  the  man's 
superiority  lies.  It  is  evidently  not  in  the 
man's  ideas  of  God,  and  so  forth — for  in  his 
presumable  freedom  from  these  the  gorilla  is 
the  superior  of  the  man — but  in  the  hard  and 
verifiable  fact,  that  the  man  can  build  houses 
and  cotton-mills,  whereas  the  highest  monkey 
can  scarcely  make  the  rudest  approach  to  a 
hut.' 

'  But  can  you  tell  me,'  said  Mr.  Herbert, 
*  supposing  men  some  day  come  to  a  state  in 
which  no  more  of  this  progress  is  possible, 
what  will  they  do  then  ? ' 

'  Mr.  Mill,  whom  in  almost  all  things  I 
reverence  as  a  supreme  authority,'  said  Mr. 
Saunders,  *  asked  himself  that  very  question. 
But  the  answer  he  gave  himself  was  one  of 
the  few  things  in  which  I  venture  to  dissent 
from  him.  For,  when  all  the  greater  evils  of 
life  shall  have  been  removed,  he  thinks  the 
human  race  is  to  find  its  chief  enjoyment  in 
reading  Wordsworth's  poetry.'  ^ 

'Indeed!'  said    Mr.    Herbert;  'and  did 

^  Vide  J.  S.  Mill's  Autobiography. 


BOOK  L     CHAPTER  III.  25 

Mill  come  to  any  conclusion  so  sane  as 
that?' 

'  I,  on  the  contrary,  believe,'  Mr.  Saun- 
ders went  on,  '  that  as  long  as  the  human 
race  lasts,  it  will  still  have  some  belief  in 
God  left  in  it,  and  that  the  eradication  of 
this  will  afford  an  unending  employment  to 
all  enlightened  minds.' 

Leslie  looked  at  Lady  Ambrose,  expecting 
to  see  her  smile.  On  the  contrary  she  was 
very  grave,  and  said,  '  I  think  this  is  shocking.' 

*  Well,'  said  Laurence  in  a  soothinof  tone 
to  her,  '  it  is  only  the  way  of  these  young 
men  in  times  of  change  like  ours.  Besides, 
he  is  very  young — he  has  only  just  left 
Oxford ' 

'  If  these  irreligious  views  are  to  be 
picked  up  at  Oxford,'  said  Lady  Ambrose, 
*  I  shall  be  obliged  to  send  my  little  boy, 
when  he  grows  up,  to  Cambridge.  And  as 
for  what  you  say  about  "  times  of  change" — 
I  am  not  a  conservative,  as  you  know — indeed, 
I  quite  go  in  for  reform,  as  my  husband  does : 
but  I  don't  think  rcligioti  ought  to  be  dragged 
into  the  matter.' 

'Well,'  said  Laurence,  'let  us  listen  to 
what  Lord  Allen  is  saying.' 

*  He  is  sure,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  '  not 
to  say  anything  but  what  is  nice.' 


26  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

Allen  was  speaking  in  a  low  tone,  but  his 
voice  was  so  clear  that  Lady  Ambrose  was 
quite  able  to  hear  him. 

*  To  me  it  seems,'  he  was  saying,  blush- 
ing a  little  as  he  found  suddenly  how  many 
people  were  listening  to  him,  '  that  the 
aim  of  life  has  nearly  always  been  plain 
enough  in  a  certain  way — always,  and  for  all 
men ' 

•  Indeed  ? '  said  Mr,  Saunders,  raising  his 
eyebrows. 

'Yes,'  said  Allen,  slightly  turning  towards 
him,  and  raising  his  voice  somewhat.  '  It 
has  been,  I  think,  as  a  single  magnet,  acting 
on  all,  though  upon  many  by  repulsion.  It 
is  quite  indescribable  in  words.  But  there 
;  are  two  things  by  which  }'ou  can  tell  a  man's 
truth  to  it — a  faith  in  God.  and  a  longing  for 
a  future  life.' 

'  Lord  Allen,'  exclaimed  Mr.  Herbert, 
and  the  sound  of  his  voice  made  everyone  at 
once  a  listener,  '  that  is  very  beautifully  put ! 
And  it  is,  indeed,  quite  true,  as  you  say,  that 
the  real  significance  of  life  must  be  for  ever 
indescribable  in  words.  But,  in  the  present 
day,  I  fear  also  that  for  most  of  us  it  is  not 
even  thinkable  in  thought.  The  whole  human 
race,'  he  went  on  in  measured  melancholy 
accents,    '  is   now  wandering  in  an  accursed 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  27 

wilderness,  which  not  only  shows  us  no  hill- 
top whence  the  promised  land  may  be  seen, 
but  which,  to  most  of  the  wanderers,  seems  a 
promised  land  itself.  And  they  have  a  God 
of  their  own  too,  who  engages  now  to  lead 
them  out  of  it  if  they  will  only  follow  him  : 
who,  for  visible  token  of  his  Godhead,  leads 
them  with  a  pillar  of  cloud  by  day,  and  a 
pillar  of  fire  by  night — the  cloud  being  the 
black  smoke  of  their  factory  chimneys,  and 
the  fire  the  red  glare  of  their  blast-furnaces. 
And  so  effectual  are  these  modern  divine 
guides,  that  if  we  were  standing  on  the 
brink  of  Jordan  itself,  we  should  be  utterly 
unable  to  catch,  through  the  fire  and  the 
smoke,  one  single  glimpse  of  the  sunlit  hills 
beyond.' 

Mr.  Herbert  said  these  last  words  almost 
fiercely ;  and  they  were  followed  by  a  com- 
plete hush.  It  was  almost  directly  broken  by 
Mr.  Rose. 

'  To  me,'  he  said,  raising  his  eyebrows 
wearily,  and  sending  his  words  floating  down 
the  table  in  a  languid  monotone,  '  Mr. 
Herbert's  whole  metaphor  seems  misleading. 
I  rather  look  upon  life  as  a  chamber,  which 
we  decorate  as  we  would  decorate  the 
chamber  of  the  woman  or  the  youth  that  we 
love,  tinting  the  walls  of  it  with  symphonies 


28  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

of  subdued  colour,  and  filling  it  with  works  of 
fair  form,  and  with  flowers,  and  with  strange 
scents,  and  with  instruments  of  music.  And 
this  can  be  done  now  as  well — better,  rather 
— than  at  any  former  time  :  since  we  know 
that  so  many  of  the  old  aims  were  false,  and 
so  cease  to  be  distracted  by  them.  We  have 
learned  the  weariness  of  creeds  ;  and  know 
that  for  us  the  grave  has  no  secrets.  We 
have  learned  that  the  aim  of  life  is  life  ;  and 
what  does  successful  life  consist  in  ?  Simply,' 
said  Mr.  Rose,  speaking  very  slowly,  and 
with  a  soft  solemnity,  '  in  the  consciousness  of 
exquisite  living — in  the  making  our  own  each 
highest  thrill  of  joy  that  the  moment  offers  us 
— be  it  some  touch  of  colour  on  the  sea  or  on 
the  mountains,  the  early  dew  in  the  crimson 
shadows  of  a  rose,  the  shining  of  a  woman's 
limbs  in  clear  water,  or ' 

Here  unfortunately  a  sound  of  '  'Sh ' 
broke  softly  from  several  mouths.  Mr.  Rose 
was  slightly  disconcerted,  and  a  pause  that 
would  have  been  a  little  awkward  seemed 
imminent.  Laurence,  to  prevent  this,  did  the 
first  thing  that  occurred  to  him,  and  hastily 
asked  Dr.  Jenkinson  what  his  view  of  the 
matter  was. 

The  Doctor's  answer  came  in  his  very 
sharpest  voice. 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  29 

*  Do  any  of  us  know  what  life  is  ? '  he 
said.  '  Hadn't  we  better  find  that  out 
first?' 

*  Life,'  continued  Mr.  Rose,  who  had  now 
recovered  himself,  '  is  a  series  of  moments 
and  emotions.' 

*  And  a  series  of  absurdities  too,  very 
often/  said  Dr.  Jenkinson. 

*  Life  is  a  solemn  mystery,'  said  Mr.  Storks, 
severely. 

*  Life  is  a  damned  nuisance,'  muttered 
Leslie  to  himself,  but  just  loud  enough  to  be 
heard  by  Lady  Ambrose,  who  smiled  at  him 
with  a  sense  of  humour  that  won  his  heart 
at  once. 

'  Life  is  matter,'  Mr.  Storks  went  on, 
'  which,  under  certain  conditions  not  yet  fully 
understood,  has  become  self-conscious.' 

*  Lord  Allen  has  just  been  saying  that  it 
is  the  preface  to  eternity,'  said  Mr.  Saunders. 

*  Only,  unfortunately,'  said  Laurence,  *  it 
is  a  preface  that  we  cannot  skip,  and  the 
dedication  is  generally  made  to  the  wrong 
person.' 

*  All  our  doubts  on  this  matter,'  said  Mr. 
Saunders,  'are  simply  due  to  that  dense 
pestiferous  fog  of  crazed  sentiment  that  still 
hides  our  view,  but  which  the  present  genera- 
tion  has   sternly  set    its  face  to  dispel  and 


30  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

conquer.  Science  will  drain  the  marshy 
grounds  of  the  human  mind,  so  that  the 
deadly  malaria  of  Christianity,  which  has 
already  destroyed  two  civilisations,  shall 
never  be  fatal  to  a  third.' 

*  I  should  rather  have  thought,'  said  Mrs. 
Sinclair,  in  her  soft  clear  voice,  and  casting 
down  her  eyes  thoughtfully,  '  that  passion  and 
feeling  were  the  real  heart  of  the  matter : 
and  that  relieion  of  some  sort  was  an  in- 
gredient  in  all  perfect  passion.  There  are 
seeds  of  feeling  in  every  soul,  but  these  will 
never  rise  up  into  flowers  without  some 
culture — will  they,  Mr.  Luke  ?  And  this 
culture  is,  surely,'  she  said  dreamily,  *  the 
work  of  Love  who  is  the  gardener  of  the  soul, 
and  of  Religion,  the  under-gardener,  acting 
as  Love  bids  it.' 

'  Ah,  yes  ! '  said  Mr.  Luke,  looking  com- 
passionately about  him.  '  Culture !  Mrs. 
Sinclair  is  quite  right ;  for  without  culture 
we  can  never  understand  Christianity,  and 
Christianity,  whatever  the  vulgar  may  say  of 
it,  is  the  key  to  life,  and  is  co-extensive  with 
it.' 

Lady  Ambrose  was  charmed  with  this 
sentiment, 

'  Quite  so,  Mr.  Luke,  I  quite  agree  with 
you,'  she  said,   in  her  most  cordial  manner. 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  31 

*  But  I  wish  you  would  tell  me  a  little  more 
about  Culture.  I  am  always  so  much  inter- 
ested in  those  things.' 

*  Culture/  said  Mr.  Luke,  '  is  the  union  of 
two  things — fastidious  taste  and  liberal 
sympathy.  These  can  only  be  gained  by  wide 
reading  guided  by  sweet  reason  ;  and  when 
they  are  gained,  Lady  Ambrose,  we  are 
conscious,  as  it  were,  of  a  new  sense,  which  at 
once  enables  us  to  discern  the  Eternal  and  the 
absolutely  righteous,  wherever  we  find  it, 
whether  in  an  epistle  of  St.  Paul's  or  in  a 
comedy  of  Menander's.  It  is  true  that  cul- 
ture sets  aside  the  larger  part  of  the  New 
Testament  as  grotesque,  barbarous,  and  im- 
moral ;  but  what  remains,  purged  of  its 
apparent  meaning,  it  discerns  to  be  a 
treasure  beyond  all  price.  And  in  Christi- 
anity— such  Christianity,  I  mean,  as  true 
taste  can  accept — culture  sees  the  guide  to 
the  real  significance  of  life,  and  the  explana- 
tion,' Mr.  Luke  added  with  a  sigh,  '  of  that 
melancholy  which  in  our  day  is  attendant 
upon  all  clear  sight.' 

'  But  why,'  said  Allen,  '  if  you  know  so 
well  what  life's  meaning  is,  need  you  feel 
this  melancholy  at  all  ? ' 

'  Ah  ! '  said  Mr.  Luke,  '  it  is  from  this 
very  knowledge  that  the  melancholy  I  speak 


32  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

of  springs.  We — the  cultured — we  indeed 
see.  But  the  world  at  large  does  not.  It  will 
not  listen  to  us.  It  thinks  we  are  talking 
nonsense.  Surely  that  is  enough  to  sadden 
us.  Then,  too,  our  ears  are  perpetually  be- 
ing pained  and  deafened  by  the  din  of  the 
two  opposing  Philistinisms — science  and  ortho- 
doxy— both  equally  vulgar,  and  equally  use- 
less. But  the  masses  cannot  see  this.  It  is 
impossible  to  persuade  some  that  science 
can  teach  them  nothing  worth  knowing,  and 
others  that  the  dogmatic  utterances  of  the 
gospels  are  either  ignorant  mistakes  or 
oriental  metaphors.  Don't  you  find  this, 
Jenkinson  ? '  he  added,  addressing  the 
Doctor  across  the  table  in  a  loud  mournful 
voice. 

'  Laurence,'  said  the  Doctor,  apparently 
not  hearing  the  question,  '  haven't  we  talked 
of  this  quite  long  enough  ?  Tozuji  and 
Country — let  us  go  on  to  that ;  or  else  we 
shall  be  getting  very  much  behind-hand.' 

These  words  of  the  Doctor's  caused  a 
rapid  change  in  the  conversation.  And  as  it 
appeared  impossible  to  agree  as  to  what  the 
aim  of  life  was,  most  turned  eagerly  to  the 
simpler  question  of  where  it  might  be  best 
attained.  At  first  there  seemed  to  be 
a   general    sense    on    all    sides    that   it   was 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  33 

a  duty  to  prefer  the  country.  There,  the 
voices  of  Nature  spoke  to  the  soul  more 
freely,  the  air  was  purer  and  fresher ;  the 
things  in  life  that  were  really  valuable  were 
more  readily  taken  at  their  true  worth  ; 
foolish  vanities  and  trivial  cares  were  less 
likely  to  degrade  the  character ;  one  could 
have  flowers  ;  one  could  listen  to  the  music 
of  birds  and  rivers  ;  a  country  house  was 
more  comfortable  than  a  town  one  ;  and  few 
prospects  were  so  charming  as  an  English 
park.  But  the  voice  of  Mr.  Saunders  was  soon 
heard  proclaiming  that  progress  was  almost 
entirely  confined  to  towns,  and  that  the  modern 
liberal  could  find  little  scope  for  action  in 
the  country.  '  If  he  does  anything  there,' 
Mr.  Saunders  said,  '  he  can  only  make  his 
tenants  more  comfortable  and  contented ; 
and  that  is  simply  attaching  them  more  to 
the  existing  order  of  things.  Indeed,  even 
now,  as  matters  stand,  the  healthy  rustic, 
with  his  fresh  complexion  and  honest  eye, 
is  absolutely  incapable  of  appreciating  the 
tyranny  of  religion  and  society.  But  the 
true  liberal  is  undeceived  by  his  pleasing 
exterior,  and  sees  a  far  nobler  creature  in 
the  pale  narrow-chested  operative  of  the  city, 
who  at  once  responds  to  the  faintest  cry  of 
insurgence.' 

D 


34  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

Slight  causes  often  produce  large  results  ; 
and  these  utterances  of  Mr.  Saunders  turned 
the  entire  torrent  of  opinion  into  a  different 
channel.  Mr.  Luke,  who  had  a  moment 
before  been  talking  about  'liberal  air,'  and 
'  sedged  brooks,'  and  '  meadow  grass,'  now 
admitted  that  one's  country  neighbours  were 
sure  to  be  narrow-minded  sectarians,  and  that 
it  was  better  to  live  amongst  cultured  society, 
even  under  a  London  fog,  than  to  look  at  all 
the  splendour  of  provincial  sunsets,  in  com- 
pany with  a  parson  who  could  talk  of  nothing 
but  his  parishioners  and  justification  by  faith. 
Others,  too,  followed  in  the  same  direction ; 
and  the  verdict  of  the  majority  soon  seemed 
to  be  that,  except  in  a  large  country  house, 
country  life,  though  it  might  be  very  beauti- 
ful, was  still  very  tiresome.  But  the  voice  of 
Mr.  Saunders  was  again  heard,  during  a 
pause,  laying  it  down  that  no  true  liberal 
could  ever  care  to  live  in  the  country  now  ; 
and  Lady  Ambrose,  v/ho  highly  disapproved 
of  him  and  his  views  in  general,  saw  here 
a  fitting  opportunity  for  contradicting  him, 
asserting  that,  though  she  and  her  husband 
were  both  advanced  liberals,  yet  the  pleasant- 
est  part  of  their  year  was  that  spent  upon 
their  moor  in  Scotland.  *  And  then,  too,'  she 
added,  turning  to  Laurence,  *  I  am  devoted 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  35 

to  our  place  in  Gloucestershire,  and  I  would 
not  miss  for  anything  such  things  as  my 
new  dairy,  and  my  cottages,  with  the  old 
women  in  them.' 

'  And  yet,'  said  Laurence,  smiling,  *  Sir 
George  would  never  go  near  the  place  if  it 
were  not  for  the  shooting.' 

*  Indeed  he  would,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  a 
little  indignantly.  '  He  likes  the  life  so  much, 
and  is  so  fond  of  his  gardens,  and  greenhouses, 
and 

But  she  was  here  interrupted  by  Mr. 
Herbert,  who,  mistaking  the  Sir  George 
Ambrose  mentioned  for  another  Baronet  of 
the  same  name — 2.  gentleman  of  a  very  old 
but  impoverished  Catholic  family — broke  in  as 
follows,  somewhat  to  the  consternation  of 
Lady  Ambrose,  whose  husband  was  a  great 
cotton-spinner,  of  the  most  uncertain  origin. 

*  Sir  George,'  he  said,  *  is,  as  I  know  well,  an 
entirely  honest  gentleman  of  ancient  lineage. 
He  is  indeed  a  perfectly  beautiful  type  of 
what  the  English  Squire  properly  ought  to 
be.  For  he  lives  upon  his  own  land,  and 
amongst  his  own  people  ;  and  is  a  complete 
and  lovely  example  to  them  of  a  life  quite 
simple  indeed,  but  in  the  highest  sense  loyal, 
noble,  and  orderly.  But  what  is  one  amongst 
so  many  ?  To  most  of  his    own    order   Sir 

D  2 


36  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

George  Ambrose  appears  merely  as  a  mad- 
man, because  he  sees  that  it  is  altogether  a 
nobler  thing  for  a  man  to  be  brave  and 
chivalrous  than  it  is  to  be  fashionable  ;  and 
because  he  looks  forward  on  his  dying  day  to 
remembering  the  human  souls  that  he  has 
saved  alive,  rather  than  the  pheasants  that 
he  has  shot  dead.' 

Now,  the  husband  of  Lady  Ambrose  being 
known  to  most  present  for  his  magnificent 
new  country  house,  his  immense  preserves, 
and  his  yacht  of  four  hundred  tons  that  never 
went  out  of  the  Solent,  there  was  naturally 
some  wonder  excited  by  Mr.  Herbert's 
words,  since  the  thought  of  any  other  Sir 
George  never  came  for  an  instant  into  any- 
one's head.  Lady  Ambrose  herself  was  in 
utter  amazement.  She  could  not  tell  what  to 
make  of  it,  and  she  was  as  near  looking  con- 
fused as  she  had  ever  been  in  her  life.  The 
awkwardness  of  the  situation  was  felt  by 
many  :  and  to  cover  it  a  hum  of  conversation 
sprang  up,  with  forced  alacrity.  But  this  did 
not  make  matters  much  better  ;  fop  in  a  very 
short  time  Mr.  Herbert's  voice  was  again 
audible,  uttering  words  of  no  measured 
denunciation  against  the  great  land-owners  of 
England,  'who  were  once,'  he  said,  '  in  some 
true  sense  a  Nobility,  but  are  now  the  por- 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  37 

tentousest  Ignobility  that  the  world  ever  set 
eyes  upon.'  Everyone  felt  that  this  was 
approaching  dangerous  ground  :  nor  were 
they  at  all  reassured  when  Mr.  Herbert,  who 
was,  it  appeared,  quoting  from  a  letter  which 
he  had  received,  he  said,  that  morning  from 
the  greatest  of  modern  thinkers,  concluded 
amidst  a  complete  silence  with  the  following 
passage,  *  Yes,  here  tliey  come,  with  coats  of 
the  newest  fashiofi,  with  pedigrees  of  the 
newest  forging,  with  their  moors  in  Scotland, 
zvith  their  rivers  in  Norivay,  with  their  game 
preserves  in  England,  with  some  thotcsands 
of  htcman  beings  calling  them  masters,  so77ie- 
where — they  probably  forget  luhere — and  with 
the  mind  of  a  thinking  man,  or  with  the  heart 
of  a  ge7itleman,  nowhere.  Here  they  come,  our 
CO tton-spin7ting plutocrats,  bringing  in  luxury, 
and  vulgarity,  and  da^nnation  I ' 

These  last  words  came  like  a  thunder- 
clap. Laurence  hardly  knew  where  to  look. 
The  result,  however,  was  more  satisfactory 
than  could  have  been  expected.  There  are 
some  emotions,  as  we  all  know,  that  can  be 
calmed  best  by  tears.  Lady  Ambrose  did 
not  cry.  She  did  something  better — she 
laughed. 

*  What  would  poor  Sir  George  say  ? '  she 
whispered  to  Laurence.     'He   is  fishing  in 


38  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

Norway  at  this  very  moment.  But  do  you 
really  think,'  she  went  on,  being  resolved 
not  to  shirk  the  subject,  '  that  Society  is 
really  as  bad  as  Mr.  Herbert  says  ?  I  was 
looking  into  the  Comte  de  Grammont's 
Memoirs  the  other  day,  and  I  am  sure 
nothing  goes  on  in  London  now  so  bad  as 
what  he  describes.' 

'  Do  you  know,  Lady  Ambrose,'  said 
Mr.  Herbert,  who  concluded  that  he  had 
given  her  much  pleasure  by  his  late  re- 
marks, '  I  think  the  state  of  London  at  the 
present  day  infinitely  worse  than  anything 
Grammont  or  his  biographer  could  have 
dreamt  of.' 

*  Quite  so,'  said  Mr.  Luke  ;  '  the  bulk  of 
men  in  our  days  are  just  as  immoral  as  they 
were  in  Charles  the  Second's ;  the  only 
difference  is  that  they  are  incomparably  more 
stupid ;  and  that,  instead  of  decking  their 
immorality  with  the  jewels  of  wit,  they 
clumsily  try  to  cover  it  with  the  tarpaulin  of 
respectability.  This  has  not  made  the 
immorality  any  the  better  ;  it  has  only  made 
respectability  the  most  contemptible  word  in 
the  English  language.' 

'  The  fop  of  Charles's  time,'  said  Leslie, 
'  aimed  at  seeming  a  wit  and  a  scholar.  The 
fop  of  ours  aims  at  being  a  fool  and  a  dunce.' 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III. 


39 


*  Yes,'  said  Mr.  Herbert,  '  society  was 
diseased  then,  it  is  true,  and  marks  of  disease 
disfigured  and  scarred  its  features.  Still,  in 
spite  of  this,  it  had  some  sound  life  left  in  it. 
But  now  the  entire  oro-anism  is  dissolvine 
and  falling  asunder.  All  the  parts  are  re- 
fusing to  perform  their  functions.  How, 
indeed,  could  this  possibly  be  otherwise, 
when  the  head  itself,  the  aristocracy,  the 
part  whose  special  office  is  to  see  and  think, 
has  now  lost  completely  both  its  brains  and 
eyes,  and  has  nothing  head-like  left  it  ex- 
cept the  mouth  ;  and  that  cannot  so  much  as 
speak.     It  can  only  eat  and  yawn.' 

'  Society,  you  see,  Mr.  Herbert,'  said 
Lady  Ambrose,  who  felt  bound  to  say 
something,  '  is  so  much  larger  now  than  it 
was.' 

'  Oh,'  said  Laurence,  shruofeinof  his 
shoulders,  '  in  that  sense,  I  really  think  there 
is  almost  no  society  now.' 

'  I  don't  see  how  there  can  be,'  said  Miss 
Merton,  '  when  what  is  called  society  is 
simply  one  great  scramble  after  fashion.  And 
fashion  is  such  a  delicate  fruit,  that  it  is  sure 
to  be  spoilt  if  it  is  scrambled  for.' 

'  I  am  glad,'  said  Laurence,  '  you  don't 
abuse  fashion  as  some  people  do.  I  look  on 
it  as  the  complexion  of  good  society,  and  as 


40  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

the  rouge  of  bad ;  and  when  society  gets 
sickly  and  loses  its  complexion,  it  takes  to 
rouge — as  it  is  doing  now  ;  and  the  rouge 
eats  into  its  whole  system,  and  makes  its 
health  worse  than  ever.' 

'You  are  the  last  person,  Mr.  Laurence,' 
said  Lady  Ambrose,  '  you  who  go  out  so 
much,  that  I  should  have  expected  to  hear 
talking  against  society  like  that.' 

'  Ah  ! '  said  Laurence,  '  we  cannot  escape 
from  our  circumstances  :  I  only  wish  we 
could.  I  go  into  the  best  society  I  can  get, 
but  I  am  not  blind  to  the  fact  that  it  is  very 
bad.  Of  course  there  are  a  number  of  the 
most  delightful  people  in  it  :  I  am  not  deny- 
ing that  for  a  moment.  But  not  only  is 
society  not  made  up  out  of  a  few  of  its  parts, 
but  even  the  best  parts  suffer  from  the  tone 
of  the  whole.  And  taking  society  as  a  whole, 
I  honestly  doubt  if  it  was  ever  at  any  time 
so  generally  bad  as  it  is  now.  I  am  not 
saying  that  it  has  forgotten  its  duties — 
that  it  cannot  even  conceive  that  it  ever  had 
any  ;  that  is  of  course  quite  true  :  but  Mr. 
Herbert  has  said  that  already.  I  am  not 
complaining  of  its  moral  badness,  but  of  its 
social  badness — of  its  want  of  practical  skill 
in  life  as  a  fine  art — a  want  that  it  often  feels 
itself,  and  yet  has  not  the  skill  to  remedy. 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  41 

Think  for  a  moment  how  barbarous  are  its 
amusements  ;  how  little  culture  there  is  in  its 
general  tone ;  how  incapable  it  is  of  any  en- 
lightened interest ! ' 

*  Really,'  said  Mr.  Stockton,  '  I  think  you 
are  doing  society  a  great  injustice.  It  seems 
to  me  that  enlightened  interest  is  the  very 
thing  that  is  everywhere  on  the  spread.  The 
light  of  intellect  is  emerging  from  the  labor- 
atory and  the  dissecting-room,  where  it  had 
its  birth,  and  is  gilding,  with  its  clear  rays, 
the  dinner-table,  and  even  the  ball-room.  A 
freer,  a  truer,  and  a  grander  view  of  things, 
seems  to  me  to  be  rapidly  dawning  on  the 
world.' 

*  I  fear,  my  dear  sir,'  said  Mr.  Luke,  '  that 
these  pleasing  opinions  of  yours  will  not  bear 
testing.' 

'  Do  you  mean,'  said  Mr.  Stockton,  '  that 
society  as  a  rule  is  not  infinitely  better  in- 
formed now  than  it  was  thirty  years  ago  ? 
Has  it  not  infinitely  fewer  prejudices  and 
infinitely  more  knowledge  } ' 

*We  should  look  to  the  effects  of  the 
knowledge,  not  to  the  knowledge  itself,'  said 
Mr.  Luke.  '  We  cannot  test  the  health  of  a 
society  from  looking  over  its  examination 
papers  in  physical  science.' 

'  How  would  you  test  it } '  said  Mr. 
Stockton,  with  a  slight  curl  of  the  lip. 


42  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

*  There  are  many  tests,'  said  Mr.  Luke. 

*  Here  is  one,  amongst  the  very  subjects  that 
Mr.  Laurence  has  ordered  us  to  talk  about — 
art  and  Hterature.' 

'  I    accept  the   test,'    said  Mr.  Stockton. 

*  What,  then,  can  be  nobler  than  much 
modern  poetry  ?  There  is  some  that  I  look 
upon  as  quite  of  the  highest  order.' 

*  When  I  spoke  of  our  literature,'  said 
Mr.  Luke  loftily,  '  I  was  not  thinking  of 
poetry.     We  have  no' poetry  now.' 

'  Indeed  ?'  said  Mr.  Stockton  ;  '  I  imagined 
you  had  written  some  yourself 

'  Ah  ! '  exclaimed  Mr.  Luke,  drawing  a 
long  sigh,  '  I  once  knew  what  Goethe  calls 
"  the  divine  worth  of  tone  and  tears."  But 
my  own  poems  only  prove  the  truth  of  Avhat 
I  say.  They  could  only  have  been  written 
in  evil  days.  They  were  simply  a  wail  of 
pain ;  and  now  that  I  am  grown  braver,  I  keep 
silence.  Poetry  in  some  ages  is  an  expression 
of  the  best  strength  ;  in  an  age  like  ours  it  is 
the  disofuise  of  the  worst  weakness — or,  when 
not  that,  it  is  simply  a  forced  plant,  an  exotic. 
No,  Mr.  Stockton,  I  was  not  speaking  of  our 
poetry,  but  of  the  one  kind  of  imaginative 
literature  that  is  the  natural  growth  of  our 
own  day,  the  novel.  Now,  the  novel  itself  is 
a  plant  which,  when  it  grows  abundantly  and 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  43 

alone,  you  may  be  sure  is  a  sign  of  a  poor 
soil.  But  don't  trust  to  that  only.  Look  at 
our  novels  themselves,  and  see  what  sort  of 
life  it  is  they  image — the  trivial  interests,  the 
contemptible  incidents,  the  absurdity  of  the 
virtuous  .characters,  the  viciousness  of  the 
characters  who  are  not  absurd.  Spain  was  in 
some  ways  worse  in  Cervantes'  time  than 
England  is  in  ours  ;  but  you  may  search  all 
our  novels  for  one  character  that  has  one 
tithe  of  Don  Quixote's  heroism,  for  one  of 
our  sane  men  that  breathed  in  so  healthy  and 
pure  an  atmosphere  as  the  inspired  madman. 
And  this  is  not  from  want  of  ability  on  the 
novelist's  part.  Some  of  them  have  powers 
enough  and  to  spare ;  but  the  best  novels 
only  reflect  back  most  clearly  the  social 
anarchy,  and  the  bad  ones  are  unconscious 
parts  of  it' 

'  And  as  for  our  painting,'  said  Mr. 
Herbert,  '  that  reflects,  even  more  clearly 
than  our  literature,  our  hideous  and  our  hope- 
less degradation.  The  other  day,  when  I 
walked  through  the  Royal  Academy,  my 
mind  was  literally  dazzled  by  the  infernal 
glare  of  corruption  and  vulgarity  that  was 
flashed  upon  me  from  every  side.  There 
were,  indeed,  only  two  pictures  in  the  whole 
collection  that  were  not  entirely  abominable  ; 


44  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

and  these  were,  one  of  them  three  boulders  In 
the  island  of  Sark,  the  other  a  study  of 
pebbles  on  the  beach  at  Ilfracombe.' 

*  I  know  little  about  the  technicalities  of 
art,'  said  Mr.  Stockton,  '  so  I  will  not  presume 
to  dispute  this  point  with  you.' 

*  Well,'  said  Leslie,  '  here  is  another  test 
quite  as  good  as  art  and  literature— love  and 
money,  and  their  relations  in  our  days.' 

He  would  have  continued  speaking ;  but 
Mr.  Herbert  allowed  him  no  time. 

'  The  very  things,'  he  said,  '  I  was  about 
to  touch  upon — the  very  things  the  pictures 
the  other  day  suggested  to  me.  For,  seeing 
how  the  work  of  the  painter  becomes 
essentially  vile  so  soon  as  it  becomes  essen- 
tially venal,  I  was  reminded  of  the  like 
corruption  of  what  is  far  more  precious  than 
the  work  of  any  painter — our  own  English 
girls,  who  are  prepared  for  the  modern 
marriage-market  on  precisely  the  same  prin- 
ciples as  our  pictures  for  the  Royal  Academy. 
There  is  but  one  difference.  The  work  of 
the  modern  painter  is  vile  from  its  very  be- 
ginning— in  its  conception  and  execution 
alike  ;  but  our  girls  we  receive,  in  the  first 
instance,  entirely  fair  and  sacred  from  the 
hands  of  God  himself,  clothed  upon  with  a 
lovelier  vesture  than  any  lilies  of  the  field ' 


BOOK  1.     CHAPTER  III.  45 

'  Really/  whispered  Lady  Ambrose  to 
Laurence,  '  Providence  has  done  so  very 
litde  for  us,  as  far  as  vesture  goes.' 

* And   we,'    Mr.    Herbert    went    on, 

*  with  unspeakable  profanity  presume  to 
dress  and  to  decorate  them,  till  the  heavenly 
vesture  is  entirely  hidden,  thinking,  like 
a  modern  Simon  Magus,  that  the  gifts  of 
God  are  to  be  purchased  for  money,  and 
not  caring  to  perceive  that,  if  they  are 
to  be  purchased  with  the  devil's  money, 
we  must  first  convert  them  into  the  devil's 
gifts.' 

'  Yes,'  said  Mrs.  Sinclair,  with  a  faint 
smile,  '  the  day  for  love-matches  is  quite  gone 
over  now.' 

But  her  words  were  drowned  by  Mr. 
Saunders,  who  exclaimed  at  the  top  of  his 
voice,  and  in  a  state  of  great  excitement, 
'  Electric  telegraphs — railways — steam  print- 
ing presses — let  me  beg  of  you  to  consider 
the  very  next  subject  set  for  us — riches  and 
civilisation — and  to  judge  of  the  present 
generation  by  the  light  of  that' 

'  I  have  considered  them,'  said  Mr. 
Herbert,  'for  the  last  thirty  years — and  with 
inexpressible  melancholy.' 

'  I  conceive,'  said  Mr.  Saunders,  *  that 
you  are  somewhat  singular  in  your  feelings.' 


46  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  I  am,'  replied  Mr.  Herbert ;  'and  that  in 
most  of  my  opinions  and  feelings  I  am  sin- 
gular, is  a  fact  fraught  for  me  with  the  most 
ominous  significance.  Yet,  how  could  I — 
who  think  that  health  is  more  than  wealth, 
and  who  hold  it  a  more  important  thing  to 
separate  right  from  wrong  than  to  identify 
men  with  monkeys — how  could  I  hope  to  be 
anything  but  singular  in  a  generation  that 
deliberately,  and  with  its  eyes  open,  prefers  a 
cotton-mill  to  a  Titian  ? ' 

'  I  hold  it,'  said  Mn  Saunders,  '  to  be  one 
of  the  great  triumphs  of  our  day,  that  it  has 
so  subordinated  all  the  vaguer  and  more  law- 
less sentiments  to  the  solid  guidance  of  sober 
economical  considerations.  And  not  only  do 
I  consider  a  cotton-mill,  but  I  consider  even 
a  good  sewer,  to  be  a  far  nobler  and  a  far 
holier  thing — ^for  holy  in  reality  does  but 
mean  healthy — than  the  most  admired 
Madonna  ever  painted.' 

*  A  good  sewer,'  said  Mr.  Herbert,  '  is,  I 
admit,  an  entirely  holy  thing  ;  and  would  all 
our  manufacturers  and  men  of  science  bury 
themselves  underground,  and  confine  their 
attention  to  making  sewers,  I,  for  one,  should 
have  little  complaint  against  them.' 

*  And  are  railways,  telegraphs,  gas-lamps 
— is  the  projected  Channel  tunnel,  nothing  in 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  TIL  47 

your  eyes  ?  Is  it  nothing  that  all  the  condi- 
tions of  life  are  ameliorated,  that  mind  is 
daily  pursuing  farther  its  conquest  over 
matter  ? ' 

'  Have  we  much  to  thank  you  for,'  said 
Mr.  Herbert,  '  that  you  have  saved  us  from 
an  hour  of  sea-sickness,  if  in  return  you  give 
us  a  whole  lifetime  of  heart-sickness  ?  Your 
mind,  my  good  sir,  that  you  boast  of,  is  so 
occupied  in  subduing  matter,  that  it  is  entirely 
forgetful  of  subduing  itself — a  matter,  trust  me, 
that  is  far  more  important.  And  as  for  your 
amelioration  of  the  conditions  of  life — that  is 
not  civilisation  which  saves  a  man  from  the 
need  of  exercising  any  of  his  powers,  but 
which  obliges  him  to  exert  his  noble  powers  ; 
not  that  which  satisfies  his  lower  feelings  with 
the  greatest  ease,  but  which  provides  satisfac- 
tion for  his  higher  feelings,  no  matter  at  what 
trouble.' 

'  Other  things  being  equal,'  said  Mr. 
Saunders,  '  I  apprehend  that  the  generation 
that  travels  sixty  miles  an  hour  is  at  least 
five  times  as  civilised  as  the  generation  that 
travels  only  twelve.' 

*  But  the  other  things  are  not  equal,'  said 
Mr.  Herbert :  *  and  the  other  things,  by  which 
I  suppose  you  mean  all  that  is  really  sacred 
in  the  life  of  man,  have  been  banished  or 


48  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

buried  by  the  very  things  which  we  boast  of 
as  our  civiUsation.' 

*  That  is  our  own  fault,'  said  Mr.  Saun- 
ders, '  not  the  fault  of  civilisation.' 

'  Not  so,'  said  Mr.  Herbert.  *  Bring  up 
a  boy  to  do  nothing  for  himself — make  every- 
thing easy  for  him — to  use  your  own  expres- 
sion, subdue  matter  for  him — and  that  boy 
wall  never  be  able  to  subdue  anything  for 
himself.  He  will  be  weak  in  body,  and  a 
coward  in  soul ' 

'  Precisely,'  said  Mr.  Saunders.  '  And 
that  is  really,  if  you  look  dispassionately  at 
the  matter,  a  consummation  devoutly  to  be 
wished.  For  why  do  we  need  our  bodies  to 
be  strong  ? — To  overcome  obstacles.  Why 
do  we  need  to  be  brave  ? — To  attack  enemies. 
But  by  and  by,  when  all  our  work  is  done 
by  machinery,  and  we  have  no  longer  any 
obstacles  to  overcome,  or  any  hardships  to 
endure,  strength  will  become  useless,  and 
bravery  dangerous.  And  my  own  hope  is  that 
both  will  have  ere  long  vanished  ;  and  that 
weakness  and  cowardice,  qualities  which  we 
now  so  irrationally  despise,  will  have  vindicated 
their  real  value,  by  turning  universal  civilisa- 
tion into  universal  peace.' 

'Yes,' said  Mr.  Herbert,  ' that  is  exactly 
what   the    modern  world    is    longing  for — a 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  49 

universal  peace ;  which  never  can  nor  will 
mean  anything  else  than  peace  with  the 
devil.' 

*  Really,'  said  Lady  Ambrose  to  Leslie, 
'  do  you  think  we  are  in  such  a  bad  way  as 
all  this  ?  Dr.  Jenkinson,  I  must  ask  you — 
you  always  know  these  things — do  you  think 
we  are  so  very  bad  ?  ' 

'  Yes — yes,'  said  the  Doctor,  turning 
towards  her  with  a  cheerful  smile,  *  there  is  a 
great  deal  that  is  very  bad  in  our  own  days — 
very  bad  indeed.  Many  thoughtful  people 
think  that  there  is  more  that  is  bad  in  the 
present  than  there  has  ever  been  in  the  past. 
Many  thoughtful  people  in  all  days  have 
thought  the  same.' 

*  Whenever  wise  men,'  said  Herbert, 
'  have  taken  to  thinking  about  their  own 
times,  it  is  quite  true  that  they  have  always 
thought  ill  of  them.  But  that  is  because  the 
times  must  have  gone  wrong  before  the  wise 
men  take  to  the  business  of  thinking  about 
them  at  all.  We  are  never  conscious  of  our 
constitutions  till  they  are  out  of  order.' 

'  Ah  !  yes,'  said  Mr.  Luke  ;  '  how  true 
that  is,  Herbert !  Philosophy  may  be  a 
golden  thing.  But  it  is  the  gold  of  the 
autumn  woods,  that  soon  falls,  and  leaves  the 
boughs  of  the  nation  naked.' 

5 


50  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  Yes,'  said  Leslie,  '  leaving  nothing  but 
Bare  ruined  choirs,  where  late  the  sweet  birds  sang.' 

*  Thank  you,  Mr.  Leslie,'  exclaimed  Mr. 
Herbert  across  the  table,  '  thank  you — an  ex- 
quisitely apt  quotation.' 

'  Then  you,  Mr.  Leslie,'  said  Lady  Am- 
brose in  a  disappointed  voice,  *  )'0u  are  one 
of  these  desponding  people  too,  are  you  ?  I 
never  heard  anything  so  dismal  in  my  life.' 

'  I  certainly  think,'  said  Leslie,-  *  that  our 
age  in  some  ways  could  not  possibly  be  worse. 
Nobody  knows  what  to  believe,  and  most 
people  believe  nothing.  Don't  you  find 
that  ? ' 

'  Indeed  I  do  not,'  said  Lady  Ambrose, 
with  some  vigour,  *  and  I  am  very  sorry  for 
those  who  do.  That  Mr.  Saunders,'  she 
added,  lowering  her  voice,  '  is  the  first  person 
I  ever  heard  express  such  views.  We  were 
dining  only  the  other  day  with  the  Bishop  of 

,  and   I'll    tell    you   what   he   said,    Mr. 

Leslie.  He  said  that  the  average  number  of 
churches  built  yearly  during  the  last  ten  years 
was  greater  than  it  had  ever  been  since  the 
Reformation.  That  does  not  look  as  if  re- 
ligion was  on  the  decline,  does  it  ?  I  know 
the  Bishop  spoke  of  a  phase  of  infidelity  that 
was  passing  over  the    nation  :    but  that,  he 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  51 

said,  would  soon  have  drifted  by.  Indeed, 
he  told  us  that  all  the  teachings  of  modern 
irreligious  science  were  simply  reproductions 
of — you  must  not  laugh  at  me  if  I  say  the 
names  wrong — Epicurus  and  Democritus — 
which  had  been  long  ago  refuted.  And  that 
was  no  peculiar  crotchet  of  his  own  mind  ;  for  a 
very  clever  gentleman  who  was  sitting  next 
me  said  that  that  was  the  very  thing  which 
all  the  bishops  agreed  in  saying — almost  the 
only  thing  indeed  in  which  they  did  agree.' 

'  Ah  ! '  said  Leslie,  '  materialism  once 
came  to  the  world  like  a  small  street 
boy  throwing  mud  at  it  ;  and  the  indignant 
world  very  soon  drove  it  away.  But  it  has 
now  come  back  again,  dirtier  than  ever, 
bringing  a  big  brother  with  it,  and  Heaven 
knows  when  we  shall  get  rid  of  it  now.' 

*  In  every   state    of  transition,'  said   Dr. 

Jenkinson    to    Miss    Merton,     '  there    must 

always    be   much    uneasiness.     But    I    don't 

think,'  he  said,   w^ith  a  little   pleased   laugh, 

'  that  you  will   find   these  times   really  much 

worse  than  those  that  went  before  them.     No 

— no.     If  we  look  at  them  soberly,   they  are 

really  a  great  deal  better.      We  have  already 

got  rid  of  a  vast  amount  of  superstition   and 

ignorance,  and  are  learning  what  Christianity 

really  is.      We  are  learning  true  reverence — 

E  2 


52  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

that  is,  not  to  dogmatise  about  subjects  of 
which  we  cannot  possibly  know  anything. 

'Just  so,  Jenkinson,'  said  Mr.  Luke  ; '  that 
is  the  very  thing  I  am  trying  to  teach  the 
world  myself.  Personal  immortality,  for 
instance,  which  forms  no  part  of  the  sweet 
secret  of  authentic  Christianity ' 

'  Yes — yes,'  said  the  Doctor  hastily  ;  *  the 
Church  had  degraded  the  doctrine.  It  needed 
to  be  expressed  anew.' 

'  Of  course,' said  Miss  Merton,  '  I,  as  a 
Catholic ' 

*  Dear  !  dear ! '  exclaimed  the  Doctor,  in 
some  confusion,  *  I  beg  your  pardon.  I  had 
no  notion  you  were  a  Roman  Catholic' 

'  I  was  going  to  say,'  Miss  Merton  went 
on,  '  that,  though  of  course  as  a  Catholic  I 
am  not  without  what  I  believe  to  be  an  infal- 
lible guide,  I  feel  just  as  much  as  anyone 
the  bad  state  in  which  things  are  now.  It  is 
so  difficult  to  shape  one's  course  in  life.  One 
has  nowhere  any  work  cut  out  for  one. 
There  is  a  want  of — well — '  she  said, 
smiling,  '  of  what  perhaps,  when  religion  has 
been  analysed  by  science,  will  be  called  moral 
ozone  in  the  air.' 

'  Such  a  feeling  is  not  unnatural,'  said  the 
Doctor  ;  '  but  you  will  find  it  vanish  if  you 
just   resolve   cheerfully  to   go  on  doing  the 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  53 

duty  next  you — even  if  this  be  only  to  order 
dinner.  And,'  he  said,  turning  to  her  rather 
abruptly,  '  don't  despond  over  the  times : 
that  only  makes  them  worse.  Besides, 
they  are  not  really  at  all  bad.  There  is  no 
need  for  desponding  at  all' 

'  But  there  is  at  least  excuse,'  said 
Laurence,  '  when  we  see  all  the  old  faiths,  the 
old  ideas,  under  which  the  world  has  so  long 
found  shelter,  fading 

Like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a  vision, 

rapidly  and  for  ever  away  from  us.' 

'  I  don't  think  so,'  said  the  Doctor,  as  if 
that  settled  the  question. 

*  Christianity,'  said  Mr.  Stockton,  '  is  only 
retiring  to  make  way  for  something  better. 
Religions  are  not  quickened  unless  they 
perish.  Look  forward  at  the  growing  bright- 
ness of  the  future,  not  at  the  faded  brightness 
of  the  past.' 

*  Why  not  look  at  the  present  ?  '  said  Dr. 
Jenkinson.  '  Depend  upon  it,  it  is  not  wise 
to  be  above  one's  times.  There's  plenty  of 
religion  now.  The  real  power  of  Christianity 
is  growing  every  day,  even  where  you  least 
expect  it.' 

*  In  what  part  of  Christianity,'  said  Leslie, 
*  its  real  power  lies,  it  would  be  unbecoming  in 


54  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

me  to  profess  that  I  know.  But  this  I  do 
know,  that  if  you  take  four  out  of  five  of  the 
more  thoughtful  and  instructed  men  of  the  day, 
you  will  find  that  not  only  have  they  no  faith 
in  a  personal  God  or  a  personal  immortality, 
but  the  very  notions  of  such  things  seem 
to  them  absurdities.' 

'Yes,'  said  Mr.  Herbert,  'it  was  once 
thought  a  characteristic  of  the  lowest  savages 
to  be  without  a  belief  in  a  future  life.  It  will 
soon  be  thought  a  characteristic  of  the  lowest 
savages  to  be  with  one.' 

'  Really  now — '  said  Mr.  Luke,  in  a  voice 
whose  tone  seemed  to  beseech  everyone  to  be 
sensible,  '  personal  immortality  and  a  per- 
sonal Deity  are  no  doctrines  of  Christianity. 
You,  Jenkinson,  I  know  agree  with  me.' 

There  was  nothing  the  Doctor  so  disliked 
as  these  appeals  from  Mr.  Luke.  He  made 
in  this  case  no  response  whatever.  He 
turned  instead  to  Miss  Merton. 

'  You  see,'  he  said  to  her  in  a  very  quiet 
but  very  judicial  way,  *  the  age  we  live  in  is 
an  age  of  change.  And  in  all  such  ages 
there  must  be  many  things  that,  if  we  let  them, 
will  pain  and  puzzle  us.  But  we  mustn't  let 
them.  There  have  been  many  ages  of  change 
before  our  time,  and  there  are  sure  to  be 
many  after  it.     Our  age  is  not  peculiar.' 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  55 

Here  he  paused,  as  he  had  a  way  of 
doing-  at  times  between  his  sentences.  This 
practice  now,  as  it  had  often  been  before,  was 
of  a  disservice  to  him  ;  for  it  gave  a  fatal 
facihty  for  interruption  when  he  could  least 
have  wished  it.  In  this  case  Leslie  entirely 
put  him  out,  by  attacking  the  very  statement 
which  the  Doctor  least  of  all  had  designed  to 
bear  question. 

'  But  in  some  ways,'  said  Leslie,  *  this  age 
is  peculiar,  surely.  It  is  peculiar  in  the 
extraordinary  rapidity  of  its  changes.  Chris- 
tianity took  three  hundred  years  to  supplant 
polytheism ;  atheism  has  hardly  taken  thirty 
to  supplant  Christianity.' 

Dr.  Jenkinson  did  not  deign  to  take  the 
least  notice  of  this. 

*  I  suppose,'  said  Miss  Merton  to  Leslie, 
'  that  you  think  Catholicism  quite  a  thing  of 
the  past  ? ' 

'  I'm  afraid,'  said  Leslie,  '  that  my  opinion 
on  that  is  of  very  small  importance.  But, 
however  that  may  be,  you  must  admit  that  in 
the  views  of  the  world  at  large  there  have 
been  great  changes ;  and  these,  I  say,  have 
come  on  us  with  so  astonishing  a  quickness  that 
they  have  plunged  us  into  a  state  of  mental 
anarchy  that  has  not  been  equalled  since 
mental  order  has  been  known.  There  is  no 
recognised  rule  of  life  anywhere.     The  old 


56  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

rules  only  satisfy  those  who  are  not  capable 
of  feeling  the  need  of  any  rule  at  all.  Every 
one  who  does  right  at  all  only  does  what  is 
right  in  his  own  eyes.  All  society,  it  seems, 
is  going  to  pieces.' 

'  I,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  '  look  upon  social 
dissolution  as  the  true  condition  of  the  most 
perfect  life.  For  the  centre  of  life  is  the 
individual,  and  it  is  only  through  dissolution 
that  the  individual  can  re-emerge.  All  the 
warrings  of  endless  doubts,  all  the  question- 
ings of  matter  and  of  spirit,  which  I  have 
myself  known,  I  value  only  because,  remem- 
bering the  weariness  of  them,  I  take  a 
profounder  and  more  exquisite  pleasure  in 
the  colour  of  a  crocus,  the  pulsations  of  a 
chord  of  music,  or  a  picture  of  Sandro 
Botticelli's.' 

Mr.  Rose's  words  hardly  produced  all  the 
effect  he  could  have  wished  ;  for  the  last  part 
was  almost  drowned  in  the  general  rustle  of 
the  ladies  rising. 

'  Before  we  go,  Mr.  Laurence,'  said  Lady 
Ambrose,  '  will  you  be  good  enough  to  tell 
me  the  history  of  these  salt-cellars  ?  I 
wanted  to  have  asked  you  at  the  beginning 
of  dinner,  but  you  made  yourself  so  very 
appalling  then,  that  I  really  did  not  ven- 
ture.' 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  57 

'  Well,'  said  Laurence,  '  no  doubt  they 
surprise  you.  They  were  a  present  made  to 
me  the  other  day  by  a  friend  of  mine — an 
eminent  man  of  science,  and  are  models  of  a 
peculiar  kind  of  retort  he  has  invented,  for 
burning  human  bodies,  and  turning  them  into 
gas.' 

*  Good  gracious  ! '  said  Lady  Ambrose, 
'  how  horrible  !  I  insist,  Mr.  Laurence,  on 
your  having  another  set  to-morrow  night — 
remember.' 

'  There,'  said  Laurence,  when  the  gentle- 
men had  resettled  themselves,  and  had 
begun  their  wine,  '  there  is  the  new  version 
of  the  skeleton  at  the  banquet-board— the 
two  handfuls  of  white  dust,  to  which  we,  the 
salt  of  the  earth,  shall  one  day  crumble.  Let 
us  sacrifice  all  the  bulls  we  have  to  Pluto 
illacrimabilis — let  us  sacrifice  ourselves  to 
one  another,  or  to  Heaven — to  this  favour 
must  we  come.     Is  not  that  so,  Mr.  Storks  ? 

'  Laurence,'  said  Dr.  Jenkinson  briskly, 
*  the  conversation  hasn't  kept  pace  with  the 
dinner.  We  have  got  no  farther  than  "  The 
Present "  yet.  The  ladies  are  going  to  talk 
of  *'  The  Future  "  by  themselves.  See — 
there  they  are  out  on  the  terrace.' 

Mr.  Storks  here  drew  his  chair  to  the 
table,  and  cleared  his  throat. 


58  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  It  is  easier,'  he  said,  *  to  talk  about  the 
present  now  we  are  alone — now  ^/icy,'  he 
nodded  his  head  in  the  direction  of  the 
party  outside,  'are  gone  out  to  talk  about 
the  future  in  the  moonlight.  There  are 
many  things  which  even  yet  it  does  not  do 
to  say  before  women — at  least,  before  all 
women.' 

*  My  aunt,'  said  Laurence,  *  is  a  great 
authority  on  woman's  education  and  true 
position  ;  and  she  has  written  an  essay  to 
advance  the  female  cause.' 

'  Indeed  ?'  said  Mr.  Storks  ;  *  I  was  not 
aware  of  that.  I  shall  look  forward  with 
much  pleasure  to  some  conversation  with  her. 
But  what  I  was  going  to  say  related  to  the 
present,  which  at  dinner  was  on  all  sides  so 
mercilessly  run  down.  I  was  going  to  claim 
for  the  present  age,  in  thought  and  specula- 
tion (and  it  is  these  that  give  their  tone  to 
its  entire  conduct  of  life),  as  its  noble  and 
peculiar  feature,  a  universal,  intrepid,  dogged 
resolve  to  find  out  and  face  the  complete 
truth  of  things,  and  to  allow  no  prejudice, 
however  dear  to  us,  to  obscure  our  vision. 
This  is  the  only  real  morality  :  and  not  only 
is  it  full  of  blessing  for  the  future,  but  it  is 
giving  us  "  manifold  more  in  this  present 
time"  as  well.     The  work   of  science,    you 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  59 

see,  is  twofold  ;  it  enlarges  the  horizon  of 
the  mind,  and  improves  the  conditions  of  the 
body.  If  you  will  pardon  my  saying  so,  Mr. 
Herbert,  I  think  your  antipathy  to  science 
must  be  due  to  your  not  having  fully  appreci- 
ated its  true  work  and  dignity.' 

*  The  work  of  science  is,  I  know,  two- 
fold,' said  Mr.  Herbert,  'speculative  and 
practical.' 

'  Exactly  so,'  said  Mr.  Storks  approv- 
ingly. 

*  And  all  it  can  do  for  us  in  speculation,' 
said  Mr.  Herbert,  'is  to  teach  us  that  we 
have  no  life  hereafter  :  all  it  can  do  for  us  in 
practice,  is  to  ruin  our  life  here.  It  enervates 
us  by  providing  us  with  base  luxury  ;  it  de- 
grades us  by  turning  our  attention  to  base 
knowledge.' 

'  No — no,'  said  Dr.  Jenkinson,  with  one 
of  his  little  laughs,  '  not  that.  I  don't  think, 
Mr.  Storks,  that  Mr.  Herbert  always  quite 
means  what  he  says.  We  mustn't  take  him 
at  his  word.' 

*  My  dear  sir,'  said  Mr.  Herbert,  turning 
to  the  Doctor,  '  you  are  a  consecrated  priest 
of  the  mystical  Church  of  Christ' — Dr.  Jen- 
kinson winced  terribly  at  this — '  and  let  me 
ask  you  if  you  think  it  the  work  of  Christ  to 
bring   into    men's  minds  eternal    corruption. 


6o  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

instead  of  eternal  life— or,  rather,  not  corrup- 
tion, I  should  say,  but  putrefaction.  For 
what  is  putrefaction  but  decomposition  ?  And 
at  the  touch  of  science  all  our  noblest  ideas 
decompose  and  putrefy,  till  our  whole  souls 
are  strewn  with  dead  hopes  and  dead  religions, 
with  corpses  of  all  the  thoughts  we  loved 

Quickening  slowly  into  lower  forms. 

You  may  call  it  analysis,  but  I  call  it  death.' 

*  I  wish  we  could  persuade  you,'  said  Mr. 
Stockton,  very  temperately,  '  to  take  a  fairer 
view  of  things.  Surely  truth  cannot  in  the 
long  run  be  anything  but  life-giving.' 

'  Let  us  take  care  of  facts,'  said  Mr.  Storks, 
*  and  fictions — I  beg  your  pardon,  religion — 
will  take  care  of  itself 

'  And  religion,'  said  Mr.  Stockton,  '  will 
take  care  of  itself  very  well.  Of  course  we  don't 
waste  time  now  in  thinking  about  personal 
immortality.  We  shall  not  live  ;  but  the  mind 
of  man  will ;  and  religion  will  live  too,  being 
part  of  the  mind  of  man.  Religion  is,  indeed, 
to  the  inner  world  what  the  sky  is  to  the 
outer.  It  is  the  mind's  canopy — the  infinite 
mental  azure  in  which  the  mysterious  source 
of  our  beinof  is  at  once  revealed  and  hidden. 
Let  us  beware,  then,  of  not  considering  re- 
ligion noble ;  but  let  us  beware  still  more  of 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  6i 

considering  it  true.  We  may  fancy  that  we 
trace  in  the  clouds  shapes  of  real  things  ;  and, 
as  long  as  we  know  that  this  is  only  fancy,  I 
know  of  no  holier  occupation  for  the  human 
mind  than  such  cloud-gazing.  But  let  us 
always  recollect  that  the  cloud  which  to  us 
may  seem  shaped  like  a  son  of  man,  may 
seem  to  another  to  be  backed  like  a  weasel, 
and  to  another  to  be  very  like  a  whale.  What, 
then,'  Mr.  Stockton  added,  '  can  be  a  nobler 
study  than  the  great  book  of  Nature,  or,  as 
we  used  to  call  it,  the  works  of  God? ' 

'  Pray  do  not  think,'  said  Mr.  Herbert, 
*  that  I  complain  of  this  generation  because  it 
studies  Nature.  I  complain  of  it  because  it 
does  not  study  her.  Yes,'  he  went  on,  as  he 
saw  Mr.  Stockton  start,  '  you  can  analyse  her 
in  your  test  tubes,  you  can  spy  at  her  through 
your  microscopes  ;  but  can  you  see  her  with 
your  own  eyes,  or  receive  her  into  your  own 
souls  ?  You  can  tell  us  what  she  makes  her 
wonders  of,  and  how  she  makes  them,  and 
how  long  she  takes  about  it.  But  you  can- 
not tell  us  what  these  wonders  are  like  when 
they  are  made.  When  God  said,  "  Let  there 
be  light,  and  light  was,  and  God  saw  that  it 
was  good,"  was  he  thinking,  as  he  saw  this,  of 
the  exact  velocity  it  travelled  at,  and  of  the 
exact   laws   it  travelled  by,  which  you  wise 


62  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

men  are  at  such  infinite  pains  to  discover  ;  or 
was  he  thinking  of  something  else,  which  you 
take  no  pains  to  discover  at  all — of  how  it 
clothed  the  wings  of  the  morning  with  silver, 
and  the  feathers  of  the  evening  with  gold  ? 
Is  water,  think  you,  a  nobler  thing  to  the 
modern  chemist,  who  can  tell  you  exactly 
what  gases  it  is  made  of,  and  nothing  more  ; 
or  to  Turner,  who  could  not  tell  you  at  all 
what  it  is  made  of,  but  who  did  know  and 
who  could  tell  you  what  it  is  made — what  it  is 
made  by  the  sunshine,  and  the  cloud-shadow, 
and  the  storm-wind — who  knew  how  it  paused 
in  the  taintless  mountain  trout-pool,  a  living 
crystal  over  stones  of  flickering  amber ;  and 
how  it  broke  itself  turbid,  with  its  choirs  of 
turbulent  thunder,  when  the  rocks  card  it 
into  foam,  and  where  the  tempest  sifts  it  into 
spray  ?  When  Pindar  called  water  the  best 
of  things,  was  he  thinking  of  it  as  the  union 
of  oxygen  and  hydrogen ' 

'  He  would  have  been  much  wiser  if  he 
had  been,'  interposed  Dr.  Jenkinson.  *  Thales, 
to  whose  theory,  as  you  know,    Pindar  was 

referring '     But  the  Doctor's  words  were 

utterly  unavailing  to  check  the  torrent  of  Mr. 
Herbert's  eloquence.  They  only  turned  it 
into  a  slightly  different  course. 

*  Ah  !  masters  of  modern  science,'  he  went 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  III.  63 

on,  *  you  can  tell  us  what  pure  water  is  made 
of ;  but,  thanks  to  your  drains  and  your  mills, 
you  cannot  tell  us  where  to  find  it.  You  can, 
no  doubt,  explain  to  us  all  about  sunsets  ;  but 
the  smoke  of  your  towns  and  your  factories 
has  made  it  impossible  for  us  to  see  one. 
However,  each  generation  is  wise  in  its  own 
wisdom ;  and  ours  would  sooner  look  at  a 
foetus  in  a  bottle,  than  at  a  statue  of  the 
god  Apollo,  from  the  hand  of  Phidias,  and  in 
the  air  of  Athens.' 

During  all  this  speech  Mr.  Storks  had 
remained  with  his  face  buried  in  his  hands, 
every  now  and  then  drawing  in  his  breath 
through  his  teeth,  as  if  he  were  in  pain. 
When  it  was  over  he  looked  up  with  a  scared 
expression,  as  if  he  hardly  knew  where  he 
was,  and  seemed  quite  unable  to  utter  a 
syllable. 

'  Of  course,'  said  Mr.  Stockton,  '  mere 
science,  as  science,  does  not  deal  with  moral 
right  and  wrong.' 

'No,'  said  Mr.  Saunders,  'for  it  has 
shown  that  rigrht  and  wrons^  are  terms  of  a 
bygone  age,  connoting  altogether  false  ideas. 
Mere  automata  as  science  shows  we  are — 
clockwork  machines,  wound  up  by  meat  and 
drink ' 

*  As  for  that,'  broke  in  Mr.  Storks,  who 


64  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

had  by  this  time  recovered  himself — and  his 
weighty  voice  at  once  silenced  Mr.  Saunders, 
*  I  would  advise  our  young  friend  not  to  be 
too  confident.  We  may  be  automata,  or  we 
may  not.  Science  has  not  yet  decided.  And 
upon  my  word,'  he  said,  striking  the  table, 
'  I  don't  myself  care  which  we  are.  Supposing 
the  Deity — if  there  be  one — should  offer  to 
make  me  a  machine,  if  I  am  not  one,  on  con- 
dition that  I  should  always  go  right,  I,  for  one, 
would  gladly  close  with  the  proposal.' 

'  But  you  forget,'  said  Allen,  '  that  in  the 
moral  sense  there  would  be  no  going  right  at 
all,  if  there  were  not  also  the  possibility  of 
going  wrong.  If  your  watch  keeps  good  time 
you  don't  call  it  virtuous,  nor  if  it  keeps  bad 
time  do  you  call  it  sinful.' 

'  Sin,  Lord  Allen,'  said  Mr.  Storks,  *  is 
a  word  that  has  helped  to  retard  moral 
and  social  progress  more  than  anything. 
Nothing  is  good  or  bad,  but  thinking  makes 
it  so ;  and  the  superstitious  and  morbid  way 
in  which  a  number  of  entirely  innocent  things 
have  been  banned  as  sin,  has  caused  more 
than  half  the  tragedies  of  the  world.  Science 
will  establish  an  entirely  new  basis  of 
morality ;  and  the  sunlight  of  rational  appro- 
bation will  shine  on  many  a  thing,  hitherto 


BOOK  1.     CHAPTER  III.  65 

overshadowed  by  the  curse  of  a  hypothetical 
God.' 

'  Exactly  so,'  exclaimed  Mr.  Saunders 
eagerly.  '  Now,  I'm  not  at  all  that  sort  of 
man  myself,'  he  went  on,  'so  don't  think  it 
because  I  say  this.' 

Everyone  stared  at  Mr.  Saunders  in 
wonder  as  to  what  he  could  mean. 

'  We  think  it,  for  instance,'  he  said,  '  a  very 
sad  thing  when  a  girl  is  as  we  call  it  ruined. 
But  it  is  we  really  that  make  all  the  sadness. 
She  is  ruined  only  because  we  think  she  is 
so.  And  I  have  little  doubt  that  that  higher 
philosophy  of  the  future  that  Mr.  Storks 
speaks  of  will  go  far,  some  day,  towards  solving 
the  great  question  of  women's  sphere  of  action, 
by  its  recognition  of  prostitution  as  an  honour- 
able and  beneficent  profession.' 

'  Sir  !'  exclaimed  Mr.  Storks,  strikinof  the 
table,  and  glaring  with  indignation  at  Mr. 
Saunders,  '  I  could  hardly  have  believed  that 
such  misplaced  flippancy ' 

'  Flippancy  !  it  is  reasoned  truth,'  shrieked 
Mr.  Saunders,  upsetting  his  wine-glass. 

Luckily  this  brought  about  a  pause. 
Laurence  took  advantao^e  of  it. 

'  See,'  he  said,  '  Dr.  Jenkinson  has  left  us. 
Will  no  one  have  any  more  wine  ? — Then 
suppose  we  follow  him.' 

F 


66  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC, 


CHAPTER   IV. 

[T  was  a  calm,  lovely  evening.  The 
moon  was  rising  over  the  sea,  and 
the  sea  was  slowly  silvering  under 
it.  A  soft  breeze  breathed  gently, 
full  of  the  scents  of  flowers  ;  and  in  the  low 
sky  of  the  west  there  yet  lingered  a  tender 
peach-colour. 

The  ladies  were  sitting  about  on  chairs, 
grouped  together,  but  with  several  little 
groups  within  the  group ;  and  amongst  them 
all  w^as  Dr.  Jenkinson,  making  himself  par- 
ticularly agreeable  to  Mrs.  Sinclair.  When 
the  gentlemen  emerged  there  was  a  general 
stir,  and  Lady  Ambrose,  shutting  up  a 
volume  of  St.-Simon's  Memoirs,  said,  'Well, 
Mr.  Laurence,  we  have  been  talking  most 
industriously  about  the  future.' 

Laurence  was  standing-  with  Mr.  Luke  on 
the  step  of  the  dining-room  window,  and  both 
were  looking  out  gravely  on  the  tranquil 
scene. 

*  Do  you  remember,'  said  Laurence,  '  that 


BOOK  I.    CHAPTER  IV.  67 

it  was  here,  three  years  ago,  that  you  com- 
posed the  hnes  that  stand  last  in  your  pub- 
Hshed  volumes  ? ' 

*  I  remember,'  said  Mr.  Luke  dreamily. 
'  What  an  evening  that  was  ! ' 

'  I  wish  you  would  repeat  them,'  said 
Laurence. 

'  What  is  the  good  ? '  said  Mr.  Luke  ;  '  why 
rouse  again  the  voices  that  haunt 

About  the  mouldered  lodges  of  the  past?' 

'  Mr.  Luke,'  said  Lady  Ambrose  appeal- 
ingly,  '  I  do  so  wish  you  would.' 

*  Is  Mr.  Luke  going  to  recite  poetry  ? '  said 
Mrs.  Sinclair,  coming  languidly  up  to  them, 
*  How  delicious  ! '  She  was  looking  lovely  in 
the  dim  light,  with  a  diamond  star  shining  in 
her  dark  hair ;  and  for  a  mortal  bard  there 
was  positively  no  resisting  her  appeal. 

Mr.  Luke,  with  a  silent  composure, 
pressed  his  hands  for  a  moment  against  his 
forehead  ;  J.ie  gave  ofte-';haiH-;  and  then  in  a 
clear  melodious  voice  began  as  follows  : — 

'  Softly  the  evening  descends, 
Violet  and  soft.     The  sea 
Adds  to  the  silence,  below 
Pleasant  and  cool  on  the  beach 
Breaking;  yes,  and  a  breeze 
Calm  as  the  twilight  itself 
Furtively  sighs  through  the  dusk^ 
F  2 


68  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

Listlessly  lifting  my  hair, 
Fanning  my  thought-wearied  broiv. 

Thus  I  stand  in  the  gloom 
Watching  the  moon-track  begin 
Qidvering  to  die  like  a  dream 
Over  the  far  sea-line 
To  the  unknown  region  beyond. 

'■So  for  ages  hath  man 

\       Gazed  on  the  ocean  of  time 

I      Fi'oni  the  shores  of  his  birth,  and,  turning 
His  eyes  from  the  quays,  the  thronged 
Marts,  the  noise  and  the  din 
To  the  far  horizon,  hath  dreamed 
Of  a  timeless  country  beyond. 

Vainly :  for  hoio  should  he  pass, 
Being  on  foot,  o'er  the  ivet 
Ways  of  the  unplumbed  waves  ? 
How,  without  ship,  should  lie  pass 
Over  the  shipless  sea 
To  the  timeless  country  beyond  1 

'  Ah,  but  once — once  long  ago. 
Came  there  a  ship  white-sailed 
From  the  country  beyond,  with  bright 
Oarsmen,  and  men  that  sang ; 
Came  to  Humanity s  coasts. 
Called  to  the  men  on  the  shore, 
Joyously  touched  at  the  port. 

Then  did  time-weary  man 
Climb  the  bulwarks,  the  deck 
Eagerly  crotuding.     Anon 
With  jubilant  voices  raised, 
And  singing,  "  When  Israel  came 
Out  of  Egypt"  and  what  so  else 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  IV.  69 

/;/  the  psalm  is  written^  they  passed 

Out  of  the  ken  of  the  land, 

Over  the  far  sea-line, 

To  tJie  nnknoivn  region  beyond. 

'  Where  are  they  nozv,  then — t/iey 
That  were  borne  out  of  sight  by  the  ship — 
Onr  brothers,  of  times  gone  by  ? 
Why  have  they  left  us  here 
Solemn,  dejected,  alone. 
Gathered  in  groups  on  the  shore  ? 
Why  1     For  we,  too,  have  gazed 
O'er  the  waste  of  waters,  and  watched 
For  a  sail  as  keejily  as  they. 
Ah,  wretched  men  that  we  are  ! 
Oil  our  haggard  faces  and  brows 
Aching,  a  wild  breeze  fawns 
Full  of  the  scents  of  the  sea, 
Redolent  of  regions  beyond. 
Why,  then,  tarries  the  ship  ? 
When  will  her  white  sail  rise 
Like  a  star  on  the  sea-line  1     When  ? 

'When  ? — And  the  answer  comes 
From  the  sallies s  face  of  the  sea, 
"  Ah,  vain  watchers,  what  boots 
The  calm  of  the  evening  1 
Have  ye  not  watched  through  the  day 
Turbident  waves,  the  expanse 
Endless,  shaken  zvith  storm. 
And  ask  ye  where  is  the  ship  ? 
Deeper  than  plunwiet  can  dive 
She  is  bedded  deep  in  the  ooze. 
And  over  her  tall  mast  floats 
The  purple  plain  of  the  calm," 


70  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  Yes — and  never  a  ship 
Since  this  is  sunken,  will  come 
Ever  again  o'er  the  waves — 
Nay,  7Wt  even  the  craft  7vith  the  fierce 
Steersman,  him  of  the  marsh 
Livid,  with  wheels  of  flame 
Circling  his  eyes,  to  smite 
The  lifjgering  soul  with  his  oar. 
— Not  that  even.     But  7ve 
Drop  where  7ve  stand  one  by  one 
On  the  shingles  and  sands  of  time, 
And  cover  i?i  taciturn  gloom, 
With  only  perhaps  some  tear, 
Each  for  his  brother  the  hushed 
Heart  and  the  limitless  dreams 
With  a  little  gift  of  sand. ^ 

'Thank  you,  Mr.  Luke,  so  much,'  said 
Lady  Ambrose.  '  How  charming !  I  am 
always  so  fond  of  poems  about  the  sea.' 

'  Ah,'  said  Mr.  Luke,  turning-  to  Mrs. 
Sinclair,  '  these  are  emotions  scarcely  worth 
describing.' 

*  Certainly  not,'  muttered  Mr.  Storks,  half 
aloud  as  he  moved  off  to  discover  Lady 
Grace. 

Mr.  Luke  stood  apart,  and  surveyed  the 
party  with  a  look  of  pensive  pity.  On  Mr. 
Storks,  however,  whose  last  remark  he  had 
overheard,  his  eyes  rested  with  an  expression 
somewhat  more  contemptuous.  The  bright- 
ening   moonlight   fell   softly   on   the    group 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  IV.  71 

before  him,  giving  it  a  particularly  picturesque 
effect,  as  it  touched  the  many  colours  and 
folds  of  the  ladies'  dresses,  and  struck  here 
and  there  a  furtive  flash  from  a  gem  on  wrist 
or  throat.  The  tranquil  hour  seemed  to 
have  a  tranquillising  effect  on  nearly  every- 
one ;  and  the  conversation  reached  Mr. 
Luke's  ears  as  a  low  murmur,  broken  only  by 
the  deep  sound  of  Mr.  Storks's  voice,  and  the 
occasional  high  notes  of  Mr,  Saunders,  who 
seemed  to  Mr.  Luke,  in  his  present  frame  of 
mind,  to  be  like  a  shrill  cock  crowing  to  the 
world  before  the  sunrise  of  universal  philis- 
tinism. 

Laurence  meanwhile  had  caught  Miss 
Merton's  eyes  looking  at  him  with  a  grave 
regard ;  and  this  had  brought  him  instantly 
to  her  side,  when  Mr.  Luke  had  ended  his 
recital. 

*  We  didn't  spare  the  times  we  live  in, 
to-night,  did  we  ? '  he  said  slowly  to  her  in  a 
low  voice.  *  Well,  well — I  wonder  what  it  is 
all  coming  to — we  and  our  times  together ! 
We  are  certainly  a  curious  medley  here,  all 
of  us.  I  suppose  no  age  but  ours  could  have 
produced  one  like  it — at  least,  let  us  hope  so, 
for  the  credit  of  the  ages  in  general' 

*  I  must  say,'  said  Miss  Merton,  smiling, 
'  that  you  seem  to  take  to  the  age  very  kindly. 


73  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

and  to  be  very  happy  amongst  your  friends. 
But  you  did  not  tell  us  very  much  of  what 
you  thought  yourself.' 

'  I  don't  often  say  what  I  think,'  said 
Laurence,  '  because  I  don't  often  know  what  I 
think  ;but  I  know  a  great  many  things  that  I 
don't  think;  and  I  confess  I  take  a  pleasure  in 
saying  these,  and  in  hearing  others  say  them  ; 
so  the  society  that  I  choose  as  a  rule  re- 
presents not  the  things  I  think  I  approve, 
but  the  things  I  am  sure  I  repudiate.' 

'  I  confess,'  said  Miss  Merton,  *  I  don't 
quite  understand  that.' 

*  Shall  I  tell  you,'  said  Laurence,  '  why  I 
live  so  much  in  society — amongst  my  friends, 
as  you  call  them  ?  Simply  because  I  feel,  in 
my  life,  as  a  child  does  in  a  dark  room  ;  and 
I  must  have  some  one  to  talk  to,  or  else  I 
think  I  should  go  mad.  What  one  says  is 
little  matter,  so  long  as  one  makes  a  noise 
of  some  sort,  and  forgets  the  ghosts  that  in 
one's  heart  one  is  shuddering  at' 

Miss  Merton  was  silent  for  a  moment,  and 
looked  up  into  the  sky  in  which  the  stars 
were  now  one  by  one  appearing. 

'  I  suppose,'  she  said  presently,  '  you  think 
it  is  a  very  poor  affair — Hfe's  whole  business. 
And  yet  I  don't  see  why  you  should.' 

*  Not     see    why    I     should  ?       repeated 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  IV.  73 

Laurence.  '  Ah,  that  shows  how  Httle  you, 
from  your  position,  can  sympathise  with  ours. 
I  am  not  surprised  at  it.  Of  course,  it  is  out 
of  the  question  that  you  should.  You,  happy 
in  some  sustaining  faith,  can  see  a  meaning  in 
all  life,  and  all  life's  affections.  You  can  endure 
— you  can  even  welcome  its  sorrows.  The 
clouds  of  eniud  themselves  for  you  have 
silver  linings.  For  your  religion  is  a  kind 
of  philosopher's  stone,  turning  whatever  it 
touches  into  something  precious.  But  we — 
we  can  only  remember  that  for  us,  too,  things 
had  a  meaning  once  ;  but  they  have  it  no 
longer.  Life  stares  at  us  now,  all  blank  and 
expressionless,  like  the  eyes  of  a  lost  friend, 
who  is  not  dead,  but  who  has  turned  an  idiot. 
Perhaps  you  never  read  Clough's  Poems, 
did  you  ?  Scarcely  a  day  passes  in  which  I 
do  not  echo  to  myself  his  words  : — 

Ah  well-a-day,  for  we  are  souls  bereaved  ! 

Of  all  the  creatures  under  heaven's  wide  cope, 
We  are  most  hopeless  who  had  once  most  hope, 

And  most  behefless  who  had  once  believed.' 

'And  do  you  think,'  said  Miss  Merton  in 
a  low  tone,  '  that  belief  in  these  days  brings  no 
painful  perplexities  too  ?  Do  you  think  that 
we  can  look  out  on  the  state  of  the  world 
now,  and  think  about  its  future,  without 
anxiety  ?    But  really,'  she  went  on,  raising  her 


74  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

voice,  '  if  I,  like  you,  thought  that  Christianity 
was  not  true,  I  should  not  waste  my  time  in 
lamenting  over  it.  I  should  rather  be  glad 
that  I  had  got  free  from  a  gigantic  and  awful 
imposition.' 

'  What ! '  exclaimed  Laurence,  '  should  we 
rejoice  at  our  old  guide  dropping  dead 
amongst  the  mountains,  even  though  he  had 
lost  his  way  ;  if  so  we  are  left  hopeless,  and 
without  any  guide  at  all  ?  ' 

*  You  have  your  consciences,'  said  Miss 
Merton,  with  some  decision  in  her  voice  ; 
'  you  surely  don't  mean  to  say  that  you  have 
lost  them  ? ' 

*  As  for  our  consciences,'  said  Leslie,  who 
was  standing  close  by,  '  we  revere  them  so 
much  that  we  fancy  they  possess  some  power. 
But  conscience,  in  most  souls,  is  like  an  Eng- 
lish Sovereign — it-  reigns,  but  it  does  not 
govern.  Its  function  is  merely  to  give  a  formal 
assent  to  the  Bills  passed  by  the  passions  ;  and 
it  knows,  if  it  opposes  what  those  are  really 
bent  upon,  that  ten  to  one  it  will  be  obliged  to 
abdicate.' 

*  Let  us  hope  that  the  constitutions  of 
most  souls  are  more  stable  than  that,'  said 
Miss  Merton.  '  As  far  as  morality  goes,  I 
expect  you  have  quite  enough  to  guide  you ; 
and  if  you  think  religion  false,  I  don't  see  why 


BOOK  /.     CHAPTER  IV.  75 

its  loss  should  trouble  you.  And  life  itself, 
remember,  has  plenty  of  pleasures.  It  is  full 
of  things  worth  living  for.' 

*  Is  it  ? '  exclaimed  Leslie  with  sudden 
emphasis,  and  he  looked  into  Miss  Merton's 
face  with  an  expression  half  absent  and  half 
wondering.  '  Is  there  anything  in  life  that 
you  really  think  is,  for  its  own  sake,  worth 
living  for  ?  To  me  it  seems  that  we  are 
haunted  with  the  power  of  imagining  that 
there  might  be,  and  are  pursued  with  the 
knowledge  that  there  never  is.  Look  at  that 
lovely  water  before  us,  with  its  floods  of  moon- 
light— how  it  ripples,  how  it  sparkles  away 
into  the  distance  !  What  happiness  sights  like 
these  suggest  to  one !  How  happy  they 
might  make  us — might,  but  they  never  do  ! 
They  only  madden  us  with  a  vague  pain,  that 
is  like  the  sense  of  something  lost  for  ever.' 

'Still,'  said  Miss  Merton,  'life  is  not  all 
moonlight.  Surely  friendship  and  affection 
are  worth  having?' 

'  Let  me  beg  you.  Miss  Merton,'  said  Leslie, 
replying  to  her  tone  rather  than  to  her  words, 
'  not  to  think  that  I  am  always  pining  and 
bemoaning  myself  Fortunately  the  deeper 
part  of  one's  nature  will  often  go  to  sleep,  and 
then  the  surface  can  enjoy  itself  We  can 
even  laugh  with  our  lips  at  the  very  things 


76  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

that  our  hearts  in  silence  are  breaking  for. 
But  as  for  happiness,  that  is  always  like  pro- 
phecy, it  is  only  fulfilled  in  the  future  ;  or  else 
it  is  a  miracle — it  only  exists  in  the  past. 
The  actual  things  we  wish  for  we  may  very 
likely  get,  but  they  always  come  too  late  or 
too  soon.  When  the  boy  is  in  love,  he  tries 
to  feel  like  a  man  ;  when  the  man  is  in  love, 
he  tries  to  feel  like  a  boy ;  and  both  in  vain.' 

'  Ah,'  exclaimed  Laurence,  '  I  think  very 
differently  from  that.  I  know,'  he  said,  turn- 
ing to  Miss  Merton,  'that  friendship  and  af- 
fection are  things  worth  having;  and  if  only 
pain  and  anxiety  would  leave  me,  I  could 
enjoy  the  taste  of  happiness.' 

'  Could  you  ? '  said  Leslie.  '  When  I  look 
at  what  we  are  and  what  the  world  is,  I  can 
fancy  no  more  melancholy  spectacle  than  a 
happy  man  ;  though  I  admit,'  he  added  as  he 
moved  slowly  away,  '  that  there  is  none  more 
amusing  than  a  man  who  tries  to  be  melan- 
choly.' 

*  Leslie  is  oddly  changed,'  said  Laurence, 
'  since  I  saw  him  last.  /  am  distressed  w-ith 
life  because  I  cannot  find  out  its  worth.  He  is 
indignant  at  it,  it  seems,  because  he  thinks  he 
has  found  out  its  worthlessness.  And  yet — 
I  envy  him  his  temperament.  He  never  lets 
any  melancholy  subdue  him.     He  can  always 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  IV.  77 

laugh  it  down  in  a  moment ;  and  he  will 
trample  bravely  on  any  of  his  sentiments  if 
he  is  on  the  road  to  anything  he  is  proud  of 
aiminof  at.' 

Laurence  was  silent  for  a  moment,  and 
then  said  abruptly  : — 

*  I  dare  say  you  think  me  very  morbid  ;  but 
perhaps  you  can  hardly  realise  the  intense  rest- 
less misery  that  a  man  endures  when  he  can 
find  nothing  to  do  which  he  really  feels  worth 
doing.  Could  I  only  find  some  one  thing — 
one  great  cause  to  labour  for — one  great  idea 
— I  could  devote  my  whole  self  to  it,  and  be 
happy  :  for  labour,  after  all,  is  the  only  thing 
that  never  palls  on  a  man.  But  such  a  cause, 
such  an  idea — I  can  find  it  nowhere.  Politics 
have  turned  into  a  petty,  weary  game  ;  reli- 
gion is  dead.  Our  new  prophets  only  offer  us 
Humanity,  in  place  of  the  God  of  which  they 
have  deprived  us.  And  Humanity  makes  a 
very  poor  Deity,  since  it  is  every  day  disgrac- 
ing itself,  and  is  never  of  the  same  mind  from 
one  week  s  end  to  another.  And  so  here  I  am 
utterly  alone — friendless,  and  with  nothing  to 
help  me ;  feeling  that,  were  it  not  for  the 
petty  contemptible  interests  I  manufacture 
for  myself  from  day  to  day,  life  would  be 
quite  unbearable.' 

'  And  yet,' said  Miss  Merton,    'yon  have 


78  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC, 

muck  to  make  you  kappy — muck  tkat  you 
would  be  sorry  to  lose.' 

'  I  kave  a  certain  position,'  said  Laurence, 
'  and  a  certain  amount  of  wealtk,  and  I  would 
not  willingly  lose  anytking  of  eitker  of  tkese ; 
but  tkat  is  not  because,  in  my  keart,  I  value 
tkem  ;  but  because,  if  I  lost  tkem,  I  migkt  in 
my  keart  cease  to  despise  tkem.' 

'  Surely,'  said  Miss  Merton,  '  tkere  is  a 
better  way  of  looking  at  tke  matter.  You 
came  into  tke  world  witk  all  your  lower  am- 
bitions satisfied  for  you,  Tke  ground  tkere- 
fore  is  quite  clear  for  tke  kigker  ambitions. 
Tkat  is  wky  I  tkink  an  aristocracy,  as  a  rule, 
must  always  be  tke  best  governors  of  men, 
for  tkeir  ambitions,  as  a  rule,  are  tke  only 
genuine  ones.  Tkink,  too,  wkat  an  advantage 
mere  wealtk  is.  Tke  kigkest  labour  will  never 
produce  money,  but  generally  requires  it.' 

'  Tkat  is  just  tke  difficulty,'  said  Laurence. 
'  Wkat  skall  I  labour  for  ?  I  am  almost 
maddened  sometimes,  as  I  sit  all  tke  day  idle, 
and  seem  to  kear  tke  kateful  wasted  moments 
slipping  away  from  me.  And  I  coiUd  do 
sometking,  I  am  sure.      I  feel  I  kave  powers.' 

'  I  tkink,'  said  Miss  Merton,  '  tkat  all  I 
skould  say  to  you  is,  find  sometking  to  do. 
Tke  power  to  find  or  make  an  object  is,  I 
tkink,  a  great  part  of  genius.     However,'  ske 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  IV.  79 

said,  with  some  sympathy  in  her  voice,  *  if- 
you  are  in  difficulties,  I  am  sure  I  wish  I 
could  help  you.' 

'  Well,'  said  Laurence  in  a  subdued  voice, 
'  I'm  sure  I  beg  your  pardon  for  my  egoism. 
I  never  talked  so  long  about  myself  in  my 
whole  life  before  ;  and  I  promise  never  to  do 
so  again.' 

Leslie  meanwhile  had  moved  away 
towards  Mrs.  Sinclair,  who,  looking  par- 
ticularly fascinating,  was  still  commanding 
the  attentions  of  Dr.  Jenkinson.  The  Doctor 
was  standing  by  her,  all  deferent  gallantry, 
and,  to  Leslie's  surprise,  was  saying  something 
to  her  about  Sappho. 

'  And  now,'  said  Mrs.  Sinclair,  with  a 
little  appealing  dainty  smile,  '  I  want  to  ask 
you  something  about  the  Greek  Anthology 
too.  I  can't  read  much  Greek  myself: 
but  a  gentleman  who  used  to  be  rather 
kind  to  me,  translated  me  a  good  deal  of 
Greek  poetry,  once  upon  a  time — when  my 
husband,'  she  said,  with  a  little  shrug  of 
the  shoulders,  '  used  to  go  to  sleep  after  his 
dinner.' 

Dr.  jenkinson  here  glanced  suspiciously 
at  Mrs.  Sinclair. 

'  Now,  what  I  want  you  to  tell  me,'  she 
said,  'is  something  about  some  little — ahem 


8o  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

— little  love- songs,  I  think  they  were — ipcjTLK- 
something  or  other — I  really  can't  pronounce 
the  name.' 

The  Doctor  started. 

*  And,  Dr.  Jenkinson,  please,' Mrs.  Sinclair 
went  on  in  a  voice  of  plaintive  innocence, 
*  not  to  think  me  a  terrible  blue-stocking, 
because  I  ask  ycu  these  questions ;  for  I 
really  hardly  know  any  Greek  myself — except 
perhaps  a  verse  or  two  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment ;  and  that's  not  very  good  Greek,  I 
believe,  is  it  ?  But  the  gentleman  who 
translated  so  much  to  me,  when  he  came  to 
these  little  poems  I  speak  of,  was  continually, 
though  he  was  a  very  good  scholar,  quite 
unable  to  translate  them.  Now,  why  should 
that  have  been,  I  want  to  know  ?  Are  Greek 
love-poems  very  hard  ? ' 

'Well,'  said  the  Doctor,  stammering,  yet 
re-assured  by  Mrs.  Sinclair's  manner,  'they 
were  probably — your  friend  perhaps — well — 
they  were  a  little  obscure  perhaps — much 
Greek  is — or ' 

'  Corrupt  ? '  suggested  Mrs.  Sinclair 
naively. 

The  word  was  a  simple  one  :  but  it 
sufficed  to  work  a  miracle  on  Dr.  Jenkinson. 
For  the  first  time  in  his  life  to  a  lady  who 
united  the  two  charms  of  beauty  and  fashion, 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  IV.  8l 

to  both  of  which  he  was  eminently  susceptible, 
Dr.  Jenkinson  was  rude.  He  turned  abruptly 
away,  and  staring  hard  at  the  moon,  not  at 
Mrs.  Sinclair,  said  simply,  '  I  don't  know,' 
with  the  most  chilling  intonation  of  which 
those  words  are  capable.  He  then  moved  a 
pace  away,  and  sat  down  on  a  chair  close  to 
Miss  Merton. 

Mrs.  Sinclair  turned  to  Leslie,  with  a 
flash  in  her  eyes  of  soft  suppressed  laughter. 

'  How  lovely  the  evening  is!'  murmured 
Leslie,  responding  to  the  smile. 

'  Yes,'  said  Mrs.  Sinclair,  looking  out 
dreamily  over  the  sea,  '  it  almost  realises 
one's  idea  of  perfect  beauty.' 

'  Really,  Mrs.  Sinclair,'  said  Leslie,  '  you 
are  certainly  most  Hellenic.  First  you  talk 
of  Sappho,  now  of  Ideas  of  Beauty.  Are 
you  a  Platonist  ? ' 

*  Mr.  Leslie,  of  course  I  am,'  said  Mrs. 
Sinclair,  somewhat  misapprehending  his 
meaning.  '  I  never  heard  such  an  imperti- 
nent question.  Platonism,  however,  is  a  very 
rare  philosophy  in  these  days,  I'm  afraid.' 

'  Ah,  and  so  you  too  think  we  are  all  of 
us  very  bad,  do  you  ? '  said  Leslie.  *  It  may 
be  so,  of  course ;  and  yet  men  at  least  often 
generalise  very  hastily  and  very  wrongly,  I 
am  sure.       How  often,   for  instance,    do  we 

G 


82  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

say  that  all  wives  nowadays  are  inconstant, 
simply  because  such  are  the  only  ones  we 
remember,  not  because  they  are  the  only 
ones  we  know.' 

This  speech  was  quite  in  Mrs.  Sinclair's 
own  manner,  and  she  looked  at  Leslie  with  a 
smile  of  appreciation  half  humorous  and 
half  sentimental. 

*  Ah,'  she  began  to  say,  in  a  voice  that 
had  just  a  touch  of  sadness  in  it,  '  if  we  could 
but  all  of  us  love  only  when  we  ought,  and 
where  we  ought — '  But  here  she  paused. 
Her  voice  died  away,  and  she  leaned  her 
head  upon  her  hand  in  silence. 

Leslie  was  going  to  have  spoken  ;  but  he 
was  suddenly  arrested  by  the  sound  of  Dr. 
Jenkinson,  close  beside  him,  talking  to  Miss 
Merton  in  a  tone  of  unusual  earnestness. 

'  I  don't  wonder,'  he  was  saying,  '  that 
you  should  feel  in  perplexity  sometimes ; 
whichever  way  we  look  at  things  there  will 
be  perplexities.  But  there  is  such  a  thing 
as  goodness ;  and  goodness  in  the  end  must 
triumph,  and  so  in  this  large  faith  let  us 
rest.' 

'  And,'  said  Donald  Gordon  in  his  soft 
deferential  voice,  which  always  sounded  as  if 
he  was  saying  something  deeply  devotional, 
*  don't  you  think  it  is  a  higher  thing  to  be 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  IV.  83 

good  for  good's  own  sake  than  for  God's  ? 
and,  whatever  men  may  beheve  about  having 
another  Hfe,  and  a  beautiful  heaven,  with  gold 
streets,  and  with  jewelled  fortifications,  don't 
you  think  that  morality  really  is  after  all  its 
own  reward  ? ' 

'  But  what  of  those  poor  people,'  said 
Miss  Merton,  '  who  cannot  be  moral — whom 
circumstances  have  kept  from  being  ever 
anything  but  brutalised  ?  I  dare  say,'  she 
said,  turning  to  the  Doctor,  quite  forgetting 
his  sacred  character,  '  that  I  shall  hardly  be 
able  to  make  you  understand  such  a  notion 
as  that  of  living  for  God's  glory.  But  still,  if 
there  be  not  a  God  for  whose  glory  we  can 
live,  and  who  in  his  turn  will  not  leave  us  all 
to  ourselves,  what  then  ?  Think  of  all  those 
who,  in  spite  of  hard  surroundings,  have  just 
had  strength  enough  to  struggle  to  be  good, 
but  to  struggle  only — whose  whole  moral 
beino-  has  been  left  writhino'  in  the  road  of 
life,  like  an  animal  that  a  cart-wheel  has  gone 
over,  just  lifting  its  eyes  up  with  a  piteous 
appeal  at  us  who  will  not  help  it ' 

Miss  Merton  looked  at  Dr.  Jenkinson  and 

paused.     The    moon  shone  tenderly  on   his 

silver  hair,  and  his  keen  eyes  had  something 

very  like  moisture  in  them. 

'  Yes,'    he  said ;   '  these   are  great,  great 
G  7, 


84  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

difficulties.  But  there  is  another  life  in  store 
for  us — another  life,  and  a  God.  And  don't 
think  that  the  world  is  growing  to  disbelieve 
in  these.  Remember  how  many  intelligent 
laymen  count  themselves  members  of  the 
Church  of  England,  simply  because  they 
believe  in  these  two  doctrines.' 

'  It  has  always  been  inexplicable  to  me,' 
said  Mr.  Storks,  who  had  been  attracted  by 
the  sound  of  the  Doctor's  voice,  '  whence  this 
lono-ino^  for  a  future  life  could  have  arisen. 
I  suppose  there  are  few  things  the  very 
possibility  of  which  science  so  conclusively 
disproves.' 

'  And  yet,'  said  Laurence,  who  had  been 
speaking  for  a  moment  to  Mrs.  Sinclair,  *  I 
can't  help  thinking  at  certain  times  that  there 
may  be  a  whole  world  of  things  undreamed 
of  by  our  scientific  philosophy.  Such  a  feeling 
is  touched  by  the  sight  of  an  "  Ora  pro  anima 
mea,"  or  a  "  Resurgam,"  on  a  quiet  tombstone, 
or  the  sign  of  the  cross  made  by  a  mother  in 
hope  and  in  sorrow  on  the  forehead  of  her 
dead  child.' 

Miss  Merton  looked  at  Laurence  with 
some  wonder  in  her  large  expressive  eyes, 
Mr.  Storks  snorted,  and  Dr.  Jenkinson 
blinked. 

'  See,'  said  Donald  Goidon,  'the  moonlight 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  IK  85 

grows  brighter  and  brighter  every  moment. 
It  is  almost  bewildering  in  its  dazzling  pale- 
ness.' 

'  And  there,'  said  Laurence,  *  do  you  catch 
it  ? — that  is  the  light-ship  on  the  horizon,  like 
a  large  low  star.' 

Laurence  seated  himself  on  the  balus- 
trade, and,  leaning  on  his  elbow,  looked  up 
into  the  clear  hollow  skies. 

'  World  upon  world,'  he  exclaimed  at  last, 
'  and  each  one  crowded,  very  likely,  with 
beings  like  ourselves,  wondering  what  this 
whole  great  universe  is  ! ' 

*  And  the  vast  majority  of  them  believing 
in  a  wise  and  just  God,'  said  Leslie,  '  for  I 
see  no  reason  why  ours  should  be  the  stupid- 
est world  in  all  creation.' 

*  Yes,'  said  Laurence,  '  and  in  each  world 
a  small  select  band,  that  has  pierced  through 
such  a  husk  of  lies,  and  has  discovered  the 
all-golden  truth,  that  the  universe  is  aimless, 
and  that  for  good  and  evil  the  end  is  all 
one.' 

Dr.  Jenkinson  had  a  sensible  horror  of 
the  stars  :  and  as  soon  as  they  were  men- 
tioned, he  turned  round  in  his  chair,  giving 
his  back  to  the  group,  Miss  Merton  included; 
whilst  Mr.  Storks  walked  away,  not  without 
dignity. 


86  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  Mrs.    Sinclair   is    going    to   sing    in    a 

moment,'  said  Laurence  ;   *  some  one  is  gone 

to  fetch  her  guitar.' 

'  Hush  ! '    exclaimed    Miss    Merton,    '  do 

just  listen  to  this.' 

'  Good    gracious ! '    said    Laurence    in    a 

whisper,      'Mr.     Storks    is    at  my   aunt    at 

last' 

Mr.  Storks  had  been  watching  ever  since 

dinner  for  an  opportunity  of  discussing  with 
Lady  Grace  the  true  position  of  woman,  as 
settled  by  modern  science.  He  was  pecu- 
liarly full  of  this  subject  just  now,  having 
received  only  that  morning  a  letter  from  a 
celebrated  American  physician,  who  stated 
very  strongly  as  his  opinion,  that  the  strain 
of  what  is  called  the  higher  education  was 
most  prejudicial  to  the  functions  of  maternity, 
and  that  the  rights  of  woman  might  very 
probably  be  fatal  to  the  existence  of  man. 
As  soon  as  he  got  hold  of  Lady  Grace,  he 
led  up  to  this  point  with  startling  rapidity  ; 
having  been  perfectly  charmed  at  starting  to 
find  that  she  fully  agreed  with  him  that  the 
prejudices  of  the  present  day  were  doing 
more  harm  to  woman's  true  interests  than 
anything  else. 

'  It  is  a  pleasure,'  said  Mr.  Storks,  '  to  dis- 
cuss these  matters  with  a  person  so  thoroughly 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  IV.  87 

enlightened  as  yourself.  You  will  of  course 
see  from  what  Dr.  Boston  says  how  en- 
tirely suicidal  is  the  scheme  of  turning  woman 
into  a  female  man.  Nature  has  marked  out 
her  mission  for  her  plainly  enough  ;  and  so 
our  old  friend  Milton  was  rio-ht  in  his  mean- 

o 

ing  after  all,  when  he  says  that  man  is  made 
for  God,  and  woman  for  God  through  him, 
though  of  course  the  expression  is  anti- 
quated.' 

'  Surely,'  said  Lady  Grace  with  anima- 
tion, '  not  only  the  expression  is  antiquated, 
but  the  meaning  also  is  contrary  to  all  true 
fairness  and  enlightment.' 

'  I  confess,  I  don't  see  that,'  said  Mr. 
Storks  with  a  look  of  smiling  deference. 

'  What ! '  cried  Lady  Grace,  '  is  it  not  con- 
trary to  reason — let  me  put  it  to  your  own 
candour — for  a  man  who  knows  that  his 
wife,  ages  hence,  will  be  a  seraph  singing  be- 
fore the  throne  of  God,  to  consider  her  only 
made  for  God  through  him — to  consider  her, 
indeed,  as  a  thing  made  simply  for  her  hus- 
band's use  ? ' 

This  answer  of  Lady  Grace's  took  Mr. 
Storks  quite  aback.  He  knew  not  how  to 
comport  himself.  His  jaw  fell — he  stared — 
he  said  nothing.  He  felt  as  though  he  had 
been  assassinated.     But  luckily  at  this  very 


88  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

moment,  liquid  and  clear,  and  exquisitely 
modulated,  were  heard  the  sounds  of  Mrs. 
Sinclair's  voice,  singing  the  following 
song — 

Darlings  can  you  endure  tJie  liquid  weather, 
The  jasmine-scented  twilights,  oh  jny  dear? 

Or  do  you  still  ronember  how  together 

We  read  the  sad  sweet  Idyll '  Guinevere,^ 
Love,  in  one  last  year's  twilight  ? 

Galeotto  fu  il  libro,  e  chi  lo  scrisse.^ 

Ah,  thefloivers  smelt  sweet,  and  all  unheeding 

Did  I  read  to  you  that  tender  tale, 
Oh  my  love,  tmtil  my  voice,  in  reading 

How  those  lovers  greeted  ^passion-pale,^ 
Tre?nbled  in  the  soft  twilight. 
Galeotto  fu  il  libro,  e  chi  lo  scrisse. 

Then  our  eyes  met,  and  then  all  was  over — 
All  the  world  receded  cold  and  far  ; 

And  your  lips  tvereon  my  lips,  my  lover ; 
And  above  tis  shook  a  silver  star. 

Through  depths  of  melting  twilight. 

Galeotto  fu  il  libro,  e  chi  lo  scrisse. 

Darling,  no  jf^uly  will  ever  find  us 

On  this  earth,  together,  more.     Our  fates 
Were  but  a  mo7nent  cheated.     Then,  behifid  us 
Shrilled  his  voice  for  7vho?n  Caina  ^  waits, 
Shattering  our  one  sweet  timlight. 
Galeotto  fu  il  libro,  e  chi  lo  scrisse. 

1  Dante,  Inferno,  v.  137.  ^  Ibid.  v.  107. 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  IV.  89 

I  shall  know  no  more  of  sinnmer  weather, 
Nought  will  be  for  me  of  glad  or  fair. 

Till  I  join  my  darling,  and  together 
We  go  for  ever  on  the  accursed  air,^ 
There  in  the  datvnless  tioilight. 

Galeotto  fu  il  libro,  e  chi  lo  scrisse. 

*  What  a  lovely  voice  ! '  said  Laurence  to 
Miss  Merton.  '  I  wonder  how  she  will  sound 
singing  before  the  throne.' 

'  She  will  be  obliged  to  take  lessons  in  a 
rather  different  style,'  said  Miss  Merton, 
unable  to  suppress  a  smile ;  and  then  she 
suddenly  checked  herself,  and  looked  grave. 
'  Mrs,  Sinclair  has  always  interested  me,'  she 
said,  '  I  often  come  across  her  in  London, 
but  I  hardly  know  her.' 

'Mr,  Laurence,'  said  Mrs,  Sinclair,  'you 
must  now  make  Mr,  Leslie  sing,  for  I  discover 
that  he  can  play  the  guitar  too.' 

Leslie  was  of  course  pressed,  and  with 
some  reluctance  consented, 

'  I  suppose,'  he  said,  '  we  are  all  of  us 
more  or  less  moon-struck  to-night,  so  I  had 
best  sing  the  silliest  thing  I  know  ;  and  as  I 
don't  think  anything  can  be  sillier  than  a  song 
I  once  wrote  myself,  I  will  sing  that,' 

He  touched  a  few  chords  carelessly,  and 
yet  with  the  manner  of  a  practised  player ; 

^  Dante,  Inferno,  v,  31. 


90  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

paused  for  a  moment,  and  then  again  striking 
the  instrument  began  to  sing.  He  was 
watched  at  first  with  merely  a  languid 
curiosity ;  and  Miss  Prattle  whispered  to 
Lady  Ambrose  that  his  attitude  was  very 
affected  ;  but  curiosity  and  criticism  were  both 
lost  in  surprise  at  the  first  sound  of  his  rich 
and  flexible  voice,  and  still  more  so  at  the 
real  passion  which  he  breathed  into  the 
following  words,  rude  and  artless  as  they 
were : — 

Oh,  her  cheek,  her  cheek  was  pale, 

Her  voice  was  hardly  musical ; 
But  your  proud  grey  eyes  grew  tender, 

Child,  when  mine  they  met, 
With  a  piteous  self-surrender, 
Margaret. 

Child,  lohat  have  I  done  to  thee  ? 

Child,  what  hast  thou  done  to  me  ? 
How  you  froze  me  with  your  tone 

That  last  day  we  met  I 
Your  sad  eyes  then  were  cold  as  stone ^ 
Margaret. 

Oh,  it  all  now  seems  to  me 

A  far-oft  weary  mystery  / 
Yet — and  yet,  her  last  sad  frown 

Awes  me  still,  and  yet — 
In  vain  I  laugh  your  memory  down, 
Afargaret. 

Leslie  received  loud  thanks  from  many 


BOOK  I.     CHAPTER  IV.  91 

voices,  especially  from  Lady  Ambrose. 
Some,  however,  were  almost  silent  from 
surprise  at  the  feeling,  which  he  seemed  quite 
unconsciously  to  have  betrayed.  Mrs.  Sinclair 
held  out  her  hand  to  him,  when  no  one  was 
looking,  and  said  quietly,  '  Thank  you  so 
much,  I  can't  tell  you  how  I  like  your  song.' 

'  Well,'  said  Laurence,  as  the  party  moved 
indoors  into  the  lighted  drawing-room,  'we 
have  been  all  of  us  very  sentimental  to-night, 
and  if  we  can't  get  better  now,  I  hope  we 
shall  sleep  it  off,  and  wake  up  well  and  sane 
to-morrow  morning.' 

This  being  Saturday  night,  there  sprang  up 
some  vague  mention  of  church.  The  nearest 
church  however  was  some  miles  distant,  and 
a  rumour  arose  amongst  the  guests  that  Dr. 
Jenkinson  would  perform  the  service  and 
preach  a  sermon  in  the  private  chapel. 


92  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 


BOOK  11. 

CHAPTER   I. 

N  the  following  morning  Lady- 
Ambrose  awoke  somewhat  out 
of  spirits.  Last  night,  whilst  her 
maid  was  brushing  her  hair,  she  had 
pondered  deeply  over  much  that  she  had  heard 
during  the  evening  ;  and  her  thoughts  having 
been  once  started  in  such  a  direction,  the 
conviction  quickly  dawned  upon  her  that  the 
world  was  indeed  becoming  very  bad,  and  that 
society  was  on  the  point  of  dissolution.  This 
was  quite  a  new  view  of  things  to  her,  and  it 
had  all  the  charm  of  novelty.  Still,  however, 
she  would  probably  have  found  by  the  morn- 
ing that  she  had  successfully  slept  it  off,  if  the 
post  had  not  failed  to  bring  her  an  invitation 

to    the    Duchess   of  's  garden-party  at 

House,  which  she  was  expecting  with 

some  anxiety.  As  it  was,  therefore,  her 
spirits  failed  to  recover  themselves,  and 
whilst  she  was  beinof  dressed  her  thouo^hts 
wandered    wistfully   away  to    the    promised 


BOOK  TL     CHAPTER  I.  93 

morning  service  in  the  chapel.  At  breakfast, 
however,  another  blow  awaited  her.  How 
a  private  chapel  had  come  to  be  mentioned 
last  evening  was  not  clear.  Certainly  there 
was  no  such  appendage  to  Laurence's  villa, 
and  the  susceptibilities  of  Lady  Ambrose 
received  a  severe  shock,  as  she  learnt  that  the 
ministrations  of  Dr.  Jenkinson,  the  comfort  of 
which  she  was  looking  forward  to,  were  to 
take  place  in  the  theatre  which  adjoined  the 
house.  She  bore  up,  however,  like  a  brave 
woman,  and  resolving  that  nothing,  on  her  part 
at  least,  should  be  wanting,  she  appeared 
shordy  before  eleven  o'clock,  in  full  Sunday 
costume,  with  her  bonnet,  and  her  books  of 
devotion. 

Mrs.  Sinclair  looked  at  her  in  dismay. 
*  I  had  thought,'  she  said  plaintively  to 
Laurence,  '  that,  as  this  was  only  a  morning 
performance,  I  need  not  make  a  toilette. 
And  as  for  a  prayer-book,  why,  dear  Mr. 
Laurence,  I  have  not  had  one  since  I  was 
confirmed.' 

'  Not  when  you  were  married  ? '  said 
Leslie. 

*  Perhaps,'  said  Mrs.  Sinclair  pensively, 
'  but  I  have  forgotten  all  about  that now.' 

At  this  moment  the  gong  sounded,  and 
the   wnole   party.    Lady    Ambrose   and    her 


94  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

bonnet  among'st  them,  adjourned  to  the  place 
of  worship,  which  was  connected  with  the 
house  by  a  long  corridor. 

When  the  party  entered  they  found  them- 
selves in  a  complete  miniature  theatre,  with 
the  gas,  as  there  were  no  windows,  fully 
burning.  1 1  had  been  arranged  beforehand  that 
the  guests  should  occupy  the  boxes,  the  gallery 
being  appropriated  to  the  servants,  wdiilst 
the  stalls  were  to  remain  completely  empty. 
The  cono^reo-ation  entered  with  g^reat  decorum 
and  gradually  settled  themselves  in  their 
places  with  a  subdued  whispering.  Lady 
Ambrose  buried  her  face  in  her  hands  for  a 
few  moments,  and  several  of  the  younger 
ladies  followed  her  example.  Everyone 
then  looked  about  them  silently,  in  suspense 
and  expectation.  The  scene  that  met  their 
eyes  was  certainly  not  devotional.  The 
whole  little  semicircle  glittered  with  heavy 
gilding  and  with  hangings  of  crimson  satin, 
and  against  these  the  stucco  limbs  of  a 
number  of  gods  and  goddesses  gleamed  pale 
and  prominent.  The  gallery  rested  on  the 
heads  of  nine  scantily-draped  Muses,  who, 
had  they  been  two  less  in  number,  might  have 
passed  for  the  seven  deadly  sins  ;  round  the 
frieze  in  high  relief  reeled  a  long  procession 
of  Fauns  and  Bacchanals  ;  and  half  the  harem 


BOOK  11.     CHAPTER  /.  95 

of  Olympus  sprawled  and  floated  on  the  azure 
ceiling.  Nor  was  this  all.  The  curtain  was 
down,  and,  brilliantly  illuminated  as  it  was, 
displayed  before  the  eyes  of  the  congregation 
Faust  on  the  Brocken,  with  a  long  plume, 
dancing  with  the  young  witch,  who  could 
boast  of  no  costume  at  all.  The  scene  was 
so  strange  that  everyone  forgot  to  whisper  or 
even  to  smile.  There  was  a  complete  silence, 
and  the  eyes  of  all  were  soon  fixed  upon  the 
curtain  in  wonder  and  expectation. 

Presently  a  sound  was  heard.  A  door 
opened,  and  Dr.  Jenkinson,  in  his  ordinary 
dress,  entered  the  stalls.  He  looked  delibe- 
rately round  him  for  a  moment,  as  though  he 
were  taking  stock  of  those  present ;  then, 
selecting  the  central  stall  as  a  kind  of  prie- 
dieu,  he  knelt  down  facing  his  congrega- 
tion, and  after  a  moment's  pause  began  to 
read  the  service  in  a  simple,  earnest  voice. 
Lady  Ambrose,  however,  though  she  knew 
her  prayer-book  as  well  as  most  women,  could 
not  for  the  life  of  her  find  the  place.  The 
reason  was  not  far  to  seek.  The  Doctor  was 
opening  the  proceedings  with  the  following 
passage  from  the  Koran,  which  he  had  once 
designed  to  use  in  Westminster  Abbey  as 
the  text  of  a  missionary  sermon. 

*  Be  constant  in  prayer,'  he  began,  in   a 


69  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

voice  tremulous  with  emotion,  '  and  give  alms  : 
and  what  good  ye  have  sent  before  for  your 
souls,  ye  shall  find  it  with  God.  Surely  God 
seeth  that  which  ye  do.  They  say,  Verily 
none  shall  see  Paradise  exxept  they  be  Jews 
or  Christians.  This  is  their  wish.  Say  ye, 
Produce  your  proof  of  this  if  ye  speak  truth. 
Nay,  but  he  who  resigneth  himself  to  God, 
and  doeth  that  which  is  right,  he  shall  have 
his  reward  with  his  Lord  ;  there  shall  come 
no  fear  on  them,  neither  shall  they  be 
grieved/  ^ 

Dr.  Jenkinson  then  went  on  to  the  Con- 
fession, the  Absolution,  and  a  number  of 
other  selections  from  the  Ensflish  mornine 
service,  omitting,  however,  the  creed,  and 
concluded  the  whole  with  a  short  prayer  of 
St.  Francis  Xavier's. 

But  it  was  discovered  that  his  voice,  un- 
less he  made  an  effort,  was  unhappily  only 
partly  audible  from  the  position  which  he 
occupied ;  and  Laurence,  as  soon  as  the 
Liturgy  was  over,  went  softly  up  to  him  to  ap- 
prise him  of  the  fact.  Dr.  Jenkinson  was  very 
grateful  for  being  thus  told  in  time.  It  was 
fortunate,  he  said,  that  the  prayers  only  had 
been  missed  ;  the  question  was,  where  should 
he  go   for  the  sermon.     Laurence  in  a  diffi- 

'  Koran,  chap.  ii.  Sale's  Translation. 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  I.  97 

dent  manner  proposed  the  stage ;  but  the 
Doctor  accepted  the  proposal  with  great 
alacrity,  and  Laurence  went  immediately  out 
with  him  to  conduct  him  to  his  new  pulpit. 
In  a  few  moments  the  curtain  was  observed  to 
twitch  and  tremble  ;  two  or  three  abortive  pulls 
were  evidently  being  made  ;  and  at  last  Faust 
and  the  young  witch  rapidly  rolled  up,  and 
discovered  first  the  feet  and  legs,  and  then 
the  entire  person  of  Doctor  Jenkinson,  stand- 
ing in  the  middle  of  a  gorge  in  the  Indian 
Caucasus — the  remains  of  a  presentation  of 
Prometheus  Bound  which  had  taken  place  last 
February. 

The  Doctor  was  not  a  man  to  be  abashed 
by  incongruities.  He  looked  about  him  for 
a  moment :  he  slightly  raised  his  eyebrows, 
and  then,  without  the  least  discomposure,  and 
In  a  clear  incisive  voice,  began  ; — 

'  In  the  tenth  verse  of  the  hundred  and 
eleventh  Psalm,  it  Is  said,  "  The  fear  of  the 
Lord  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom."  '  The  fear 
of  the  Lord,'  he  again  repeated,  more  slowly, 
and  with  more  emphasis,  surveying  the 
theatre  as  he  spoke,  '  is  the  beginning  of 
wisdom.' 

He  then  made  a  long  pause,  looking  down 
at  his  feet,  as  If,  although  he  held  his  sermon- 
book  In  his  hand,  he  were  considering  how  to 

H 


98  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

begin.  As  he  stood  there  silent,  the  footlights 
shining  brightly  on  his  silver  hair,  Lady 
Ambrose  had  full  time  to  verify  the  text  in 
her  prayer-book.  At  last  the  Doctor  sud- 
denly raised  his  head,  and  with  a  gentle 
smile  of  benignity  playing  on  his  lips,  shook 
open  his  manuscript,  and  thus  proceeded  : — 

'  The  main  dijfiailty  that  ocnipicd  the  early 
Greek  Philosophers,  as  soon  as  philosophy  hi 
its  prot>er  sense  can  be  said  to  have  bcgmi,  was 
the  great  dtialism  that  seemed  to  7'iin  through 
all  things.  Matter  and  mind,  the  presence  of 
imperfection,  and  the  idea  of  perfection,  or  the 
nnity  and phirality  of  being,  ivere  amongst  the 
various  forms  in  ivhich  the  two  contradictory 
elements  of  things  were  presented  to  them, 
as  demanding  reconcilement  or  explaiiation. 
This  manner  of  viezving  things  comes  to  a 
head,  so  to  speak,  amongst  the  ancients,  in  the 
system  of  Plato.  With  him  the  sensible  and 
the  intelligible  worlds  stand  separated  by  a 
great  gnlf  the  one  containing  all  good,  the 
other  of  itself  only  evil,  until  we  recognise  its 
relation  to  the  good,  and  see  that  it  is  only  a 
shadow  and  a  type  of  it.  The  world  of  real 
existence  is  something  outside,  and  virtually 
tmconnected  with,  this  world  of  mere  phe- 
nomena;  and  the  Platonic  prayer  is  that  we 
should  be  taken  out  of  the  world,  rather  than^ 


BOOK  11.     CHAPTER  I.  99 

as  Christ  says,  with  a  fiiiler  zvisdoni,  that  we 
shoicid  be  delivered  fi'oin  the  evil. 

'  Plato  had,  however,  by  thus  dzuelliiig  on 
this  antagonism  in  things,  paved  the  way  for 
a  reconeiliation — some  say  he  even  himself  began 
it.  At  aiiy  rate,  it  was  through  him  that  it 
was  nearly,  if  not  qidte,  accomplished  by  his 
disciple  Aristotle.  A  ristotle first  systematised 
the  great  prhiciple  of  evohition,  and  trans- 
formed luJiat  had  appeared  to  former  thinkers 
as  the  diialisni  of  mind  and  matter  into  a  single 
scale  of  ascending  existences.  Thns  what 
Plato  had  conceived  of  as  two  worlds,  were  now 
presented  as  opposite  poles  of  the  same.  The 
TrpcxiTT)  vXt),  the  world  "  without  form  and  void','' 
receiving  form,  at  length  culminated  in  the 
soul  of  ma^i  ;  ajid  in  the  soul  of  man  sensation 
at  length  cttlminated  in  p2ire  thought!  A 
slight  cough  here  escaped  from  Mrs.  Sinclair. 
'  You  luill perhaps  think,'  the  Doctor  went  on, 
'  that  a  scr^non  is  not  the  place  in  which  to 
discuss  siLch  differences  of  seciilar  opinion  ;  or 
yo2t  will  perhaps  think  that  such  differences 
are  of  no  very  great  moment,  Btit  if  you  look 
under  tlie  surface,  and  at  the  in7ier  meaning  of 
them,  you.  will  find  that  they  bear  upon  ques- 
tions zuhich  are,  or  ought  to  be,  of  the  very 
highest  moment  to  each  of  ics — questions  in- 
deed', the  Doctor  added,  suddenly  lowering  his 

H  Z 


too  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

manuscript  for  a  moment,  and  looking  sharply 
found  at  his  audience,  '  which  we  ail  of  its  here 
have  very  lately — very  lately  indeed — either 
discussed  ourselves,  or  heard  discussed  by  others' 
This  produced  an  immediate  sensation,  es- 
pecially amongst  the  feminine  part  of  the 
listeners,  to  whom  the  discourse  thus  far  had 
seemed  strange,  rather  than  significant.  *  The 
questio7i^  the  Doctor  continued,  '  is  one  of  the 
relations  of  the  spiritual  to  the  natiu^ai  ;  and 
the  opposition  between  the  vieius  of  these  tiuo 
ancient  philosophers  is  by  no  means  obsolete  ifi 
our  ozvn  centuiy.  Thei'e  is  even  now  far  too 
p7^evalent  a  tendency  to  look  upon  the  spiritual 
as  something  traiiscending  and  completely 
separate  from  the  natural ;  and  there  is  in  the 
minds  of  many  zuell-meaning  and  earnest 
persons  a  sort  of  alarm  felt  at  any  attempt  to 
bring  the  tzvo  into  connection.  This  feeling 
is  experienced  not  by  Christians  only,  biU  by  a 
large  mimber  of  their  opponents.  There  is,  for 
instajtce,  no  doctrine  more  often  selected  for 
attack  by  those  zvho  oppose  Christianity  upon 
moral grotmds,  than  that  of  zvhich  my  text  is 
an  expression,  I  mean  the  doctrine  of  a  morality 
enforced  by  reiuards  a?id punishments.  Stick 
moj'ality,  zve  hear  it  continually  urged  by  men 
who  set  themselves  up  as  advanced  thinkers,  is 
no  morality  at  all.     No  action  can  be  good. 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  I.  loi 

tkey  tell  us,  that  does  not  spring  from  the  love 
of  good.  Virtue  is  no  longer  virtue  if  it 
springs  from  fear.  The  very  essence  of  it  is 
to  spring  from  freedom.  Now,  these  argu- 
ments, though  specious  at  the  first  blush  of  the 
thing,  are  really,  if  we  look  them  honestly  in 
the  face,  to  the  7ttmost  shallow  and  unphiloso- 
phical.  They  are  really  but  so  many  denials 
of  the  great  doctrine  of  evolution — so  many  at- 
tempts to  set  7ip  again  that  absolute  aiitagonism 
between  good  and  evil  which  it  has  been  the  aim 
of  all  the  higher  thinkers,  and  of  Christ  him- 
self to  do  away  with.  If  then,  these  modern 
critics  of  Christianity  come  to  us  with  sttch 
objections,  let  2cs  not  try  to  disguise  the  triUh 
that  the  morality  of  oitr  religion  is  based  on 
fear.  Let  2ts  rather  boldly  avow  this,  and  try 
to  pohit  out  to  them  that  it  is  they,  and  not  the 
Psalmist,  that  are  out  of  harmony  with  modern 
tho7ight.  For  what  is  it  that  the  sacred  Scrip- 
ture says  ?  "  The  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the 
beginning  of  zvisdom."  The  beginning,  you 
will  please  to  observe — the  beginning  only.  It 
is  not  perfect  wisdom,  it  is  not  perfect  virttie  ; 
but  it  is  the  beginning  of  both  of  these.  It  is, 
if  I  may  be  allowed  the  expression,  the  moral 
protoplasm — it  is  that  out  of  which  they  are 
both  evolved.  It  is,  as  Aristotle  zvould  callit, 
their  potentiality.     The  actuality  is  different 


102  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

from  the  potentiality  ;  for  ^^  perfect  love'''  as  St. 
yohn  says,  "  caste th  ottt  fear!'  Putting  toge- 
ther, then,  the  ideas  of  these  tivo  good  men,  St. 
fohn  and  Aristotle,  lue  may  say  that  the  love 
of  God — that  is,  trne  ivisdom — is  the  actuality 
of  the  fear  of  Him. 

*  This  account  of  the  origin  of  the  true 
wisdom  may  not,  indeed,  be  applicable  to  each 
individtial  case.  Some  persons' — the  Doctor's 
voice  here  grew  very  soft,  and  seemed  as 
though  it  would  almost  break  with  feeling — 
'' some  persons  may  have  been  so  fortunate  as 
to  have  received  the  truest  wisdom  into  their 
hearts  by  education,  almost  with  their  mother  s 
milk.  But  there  ai'e  those  not  so  fo7'tunate, 
who  may  have  needed  the  discipline  of  a  godly 

fear  to  lead  them  upwards  f^om  a  "  wallozuing 
in  the  sensual  sty"  tozvards  the  higher  life. 
And  pes  t  as  this  is  t7^ue  of  many  of  us  indivi- 
dually, so  it  is  still  more  deeply  true  of  the 
human  race  as  a  zvhole.  A II  study  of  history^ 
and  of  social  science,  and  of  philosophy ,  is  teach- 
ing this  to  us  every  day  with  increasing  clear- 
ness. The  human  race,  as  soon  as  it  became 
human,  feared  God  before  it  loved  Him.     Its 

fear,  as  the  Scripture  puts  it,  was  the  beginning 
of  its  wisdom  ;  or  as  modern  thought  has  put 
it,    in   slightly   different   zuords,    the  love   of 

justice  sprang  out  of  the  fear  of  siffering  in- 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  I.  103 

justice.  Thus  the  end  is  different  from  the 
beginning,  and  yet  springs  out  of  it.  Ethics, 
as  it  has  been  well  said,  are  the  finest  fridts 
of  hicmanity,  but  they  are  not  its  roots.  Our 
reverence  for  truth,  all  oitr  sacred  family  ties, 
and  the  purest  and  most  exalted  forms  of  matri- 
monial attachment,  have  each  tlieir  respective 
07^igins  in  self-interest,  self-preservation,  and 
animal  appetite. 

*  There  is,  I  admit,  in  this  triuh  something 
that  may  at  first  sight  repel  us,  and  perhaps 
even  prompt  some  of  us  to  deny  ijidignantly 
that  it  is  a  truth  at  all.  But  this  is  really  a 
coivardly  and  unworthy  feeling,  fatal  to  any 
true  comprehension  of  God's  dealings  with 
man,  and  arising  from  a  quite  mistaken  con- 
ception of  our  own  dignity,  and  our  own  con- 
nection with  God.  It  is  some  szich  mistaken 
conception  as  this  that  sets  so  many  of  tis 
against  the  discoveries  of  moder?i  science  as  to 
the  origin  of  our  oivn  species,  and,  what  is  far 
worse,  prompts  us  to  oppose  such  discoveries 
with  dishonest  objectio7is.  How  is  it  possible, 
some  of  us  ask,  that  man  with  his  sublime  con- 
ceptions of  duty  and  of  God,  and  his  fine  ap- 
paratus of  reason,  and  so  forth,  should  be  pro- 
duced by  any  process  of  evolution  from  a  beastly 
and  irrational  ape  f  But  to  ask  such  questions 
as  these  is  really  to  call  in  qtiestion  the  power 


104  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

of  God,  and  so  to  do  Him  disJionour.  It  is 
if  tie  that  zve  cannot  trace  ont,  as  yet,  all  the 
steps  of  this  wonderfnl  cvohition  ;  but  let  us 
not  be  found,  like  doubting  Thomas,  resolved 
not  to  believe  until  we  have  actually  seen.  And 
yet,  if  onr  faith  does  indeed  reqtiire  strengthen- 
ing, we  have  only  to  look  a  little  more  attentively 
at  the  commonest  facts  before  us.  For  is  it  not^ 
let  me  ask  you — to  take,  for  instance,  a  mans 
sublime  faculty  of  reasoning  and  logical  com- 
prehension— far  more  wonderftil  that  a  reason- 
ing man  shoiild  have  the  same  parents  as  a 
woman,  than  that  they  both  should  have  the 
same  parents  as  a  monkey?  Science  and  re- 
ligion both  alike  teach  us  that  zvith  God  all 
things  are  possible. 

'  I  J2ist  touch  in  passing  upon  this  doctrine 
that  we  popularly  call  Darzvinism,  because  it 
is  the  most  familiar  example  to  tis  of  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution.  BtU  the  point  which  I  am 
wishing  to  emphasize  is  not  the  outward  cvohi- 
tion of  man,  but  the  inward,  ofzvhich,  however, 
the  former  is  an  image  and  a  likeness.  This 
theory  of  moral  evolution,  I  zuish  to  point  out 
to  you,  is  alike  the  Christian  and  the  scientific 
theory  ;  and  I  thus  wish  you  to  see  that  the 
very  points  in  which  science  seems  most  opposed 
to  Christianity  are  really  those  in  which  it 
7nost  fundamentally  agrees   zvith  it.     I  will 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  I.  105 

therefore  just  ask  yott  to  notice  how  foolish  and 
short-sighted  those  persons  are  zvho  think  that 
a  great  resiilt  is  lessened  if  it  can  be  proved  to 
have  had  small  beginnings.  Is  a  state  less 
truly  a  state  because  we  know  that  it  has  sprttng 
out  of  the  germ  of  the  family  ?  Surely  not. 
Neither  is  man  less  tntly  man  if  he  have  sprung 
from  an  ape ;  nor  is  love  less  truly  love  if  it 
has  sprung  from  fear. 

And  so  now,  since  zue  have  seen  how  science 
and  Christianity  are  at  one  as  to  the  rise  of  the 
moral  sentiments,  I  will  pass  on  to  a  wider 
point,  the  character  a7id  the  history  of  Christi- 
anity itself,  both  of  zvhich  have  been  misimder- 
stood  and  misinterpreted  for  at  least  eighteen 
hundred  years  ;  and  luhcn  I  have  pointed  out 
how  this  great  sidyect  is  being  nozv  explained 
by  the  methods  of  modern  science,  I  will  pass 
on  to  an  issue  that  is  zvider  yet. 

'  The  zvorld  has  hit heido  failed  to  under- 
stand Christianity,  because  it  studied  it  tLpon 
a  false  method — a  method  based  upon  that  old 
dualistic  theory  of  things  of  zuhich  I  have 
already  spoken,  fust  as  Plato  looked  upon 
mind  as  entirely  disthict  from  matter,  so  used 
Christians  to  look  upon  things  sacred  as  en- 
tirely distinct  from  things  secular.  But  now 
this  middle  zvall  of  partition  is  being  b^^oken 
down  by  science,  and  by  scientific  criticism,  and 


io6  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

by  a  wider  vieiv  of  things  in  general.  The 
primary  way  in  which  all  this  has  affected 
Christianity,  is  by  the  new  spirit  in  which  it 
has  led  us  to  stiLdy  the  Bible.  We  used  to 
look  up07i  the  Bible  as  a  book  standing  apart 
by  itself,  and  to  be  interpreted  by  a  pectUiar 
canon  of  criticism.  But  zue  have  now  learnt 
that  it  is  to  be  studied  j 21st  like  all  other  books  ; 
and  we  are  now  for  the  first  time  coming  to 
widerstand  what,  in  its  true  grandeur,  a  real 
revelation  is.  We  are  learning,  in  fact,  that 
Just  as  no  single  scrip  t7tre  ''is  of  any  private 
interpretation  ;  "  still  less  is  the  entif'e  body  of 
the  ScriptiLres.  They,  too,  must  be  iiiterpreted 
by  their  context.  We  must  inquire  into  their 
origin;  we  vmst  ask  diligently  under  zvhat 
circti7nstances  they  ivere  zvritten  and  edited, 
and  for  what  ends.  Nor  must  we  ever  again 
fall  into  s2Lch  quaint  and  simple  mistakes  as 
did  commentators  like  Origen,  or  Aiigustine, 
or  Tertullian,  or  even  Paid  himself,  whose  dis- 
coveries of  Messiajiic  prophecies  in  writings 
like  the  Psalms  for  instance,  are  really  much 
the  same  as  luotdd  be  a  discovery  on  our  part  in 
Mr.  Tennyson  s  liiie  on  the  death  of  the  Dtike  of 
Wellington,  "  The  last  great  Englishman  is 
low,"  a  prophecy  of  the  late  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer.  But  to  nndei^stand  the  meaning 
of  any  text,   zve  must  try  to  see  what,  from 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  1.  107 

his  position  and  education,  the  ivriter  could 
have  meant  by  it ;  not  ivhat  this  or  that  Father, 
living  long  afterzvards,  fancied  that  he  meant. 
Our  motto  in  religion,  as  in  science,  shottld  be, 
"  Vere  scire  est  per  caitsas  scire.^' 

'Ifzue  study  Christianity  reverently  and 
carefully  iLpon  these  principles,  we  shall  see 
that  it  was  not  a  thing  that  sprang  up,  as  we 
used  to  fancy,  luithout  any  human  antecedents, 
but  that  its  roots  reach  back  with  many  7'a77iifi- 
cations  into  the  western  and  oinental  thought 
of  preceding  centuries.  We  shall  see  hozv  it 
absorbed  into  itself  all  that  zvas  highest  in 
Hebraistic  Theis7n  and  in  Hellenic  thought — 
something  too,  let  tts  admit,  of  the  failings  of 
both.  I  cannot  hei^e  enter  into  any  of  the 
details  of  this,  what  may  be  truly  termed  pre- 
Christian  Christianity.  I  can  only  briefly 
point  out  its  existence,  and  its  dotible  origin, 
commenting  on  these  by  the  following  few  lines 
from  a  great  German  writer.  "  The  yearning 
after  a  higher  revelatio7i''  he  tells  us,  "  was  the 
universal  characteristic  of  the  last  ce7ituiHes 
of  the  ancient  world.  This  was  in  the  first 
place  bid  a  consciousness  of  the  decline  of  the 
classical  natio7is  and  their  cultttre,  and  the 
presenti77tent  of  the  approach  of  a  nezv  era  ; 
and  it  called  into  life  not  07ily  Christiamty, 
but  also,    and  before  it,  Pagan  and  Jewish 


io8  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC, 

Alcxandriamsm,    and  other  related  develop- 
ments!' 

'T/iis,  then,  is  the  great  point  to  be  borne 
in  mind — viz.  that  God  had  been  preparing  the 
way  for  the  coining  of  Christ  long  before  he 
sent  "  Elias,  which  was  for  to  be."  Neither 
yohn  Baptist,  no,  nor  One  greater  than  fohn, 
zvas  left  by  God  {as  the  children  of  Israel  zvere 
left  by  PharaoJi)  to  gather  straiu  himself  to 
make  bricks.  The  materials  luere  all  prepared 
ready  to  their  hands  by  their  Heavenly  Father. 
And  so,  let  tis  be  especially  and prayerfnlly  on 
02ir  guard  against  considering  Christianity  as 
having  come  into  the  ivorld  at  once,  ready-made, 
so  to  speak,  by  onr  Saviour,  as  a  body  of  theo- 
logical doctrines.  Any  honest  st2tdy  of  history 
will  show  2CS  that  the  Apostles  received  no  such 
system  ;  that  onr  Lord  Himself  never  made 
any  claim  to  the  various  characters  ivith  ivhich 
subsequent  thought  invested  Him  ;  and  that  to 
attribute  stich  claims  to  Him  zooidd  be  an  an- 
achronism, of  zvhich  He  woiild  Himself  have 
scarcely  understood  the  meaning.  If  we  only 
clear  our  eyes  of  any  false  theological  glamour, 
a  very  slight  study  of  the  inspired  writers  zvill 
at  once  shozv  us  this.  We  shall  see  how  un- 
certain and  shifting  at  first  everything  was. 
We  shall  see  what  a  variety  of  confiicting 
opinio7is  the   early    Church    entertaiiied  even 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  I.  109 

ui>on  the  most  fundamental  stibjeds — such,  for 
instance,  as  the  identity  of  the  God  of  the  Old 

Testament  zvith  the  God  of  the  New,  which 
was  denied  by   a    large    number  of  the  early 

Christians :  we  shall  see  how  zvidely  divergent 
were   the   systems    of  yewish    and  Pauliiie 

Christianity,  and  how  discrepant  and  ten- 
tative are  the  accounts  given  by  St.  Paul  and 
by  the  atUhor  of  the  Fottrth  Gospel  of  the 
mystical  iiature  of  Christ,  whom  they  tried  to 
identify  zvith  different  inysteriotis  potencies 
supposed  by  the  feivish- Alexandrian  philoso- 
phers to  be  coexistent  zvith  God.  And  if  we 
pitrsue  the  histojy  of  the  Chttrch  a  little  farther, 
we  shall  find  many  moj'e  things  to  startle  us. 

We  shall  find,  for  instance,  the  most  renozvncd 
apologist  of  early  Catholic  times,  a  materialist, 
holding  the  materiality  not  of  the  soul  of  maji 
only,  but  of  God  also.  ''Nihil  enim'' — these 
are  this  father  s  zvords — "  si  non  corpus.  Omne 
quod  est,  corptts  est!  Thus  zve  see,'  said  the 
Doctor  cheerfully,  looking  round  him  with  a 
smile  of  benignant  triumph,  and  blinking  with 
his  eyes,  '  that  difference  of  opinion  about  the 
dogmas  of  religion  is  nothing  new.  It  existed 
in  the  Jezvish  Chtirch;  the  phenomenon  was 
07ily  prolonged  by  Christianity.  Later 
fudaism  and  primitive  Christianity  were  both 
made  np  of  a  variety  of  systems,  all  honestly 


no  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

and  boldly  thought  out,  differing  widely  f^'om 
each  other,  and  called  by  the  honourable  appella- 
tion of  heresies :  and  of  these,  let  me  remi7id 
you,  it  is  the  glojy  of  the  CJmrch  of  E?igland 
to  be  composed  likeiuisc. 

'  Nor  is  this  all,'  he  went  on  in  a  softer 
and  more  appealing  tone ;  '  not  only  are 
all  these  things  so  confused  and  doubtful ; 
but  we  now  see  that,  in  the  face  of  rece?it  criti- 
cism, zve  cannot  eveii  be  quite  sure  about  any  of 
the  details  of  the  divine  life  of  our  Lord.  But 
in  all  this  ' — the  Doctor's  voice  here  became 
still  more  aerial,  and  he  fixed  his  eyes  upon 
the  painted  ceiling  of  the  theatre,  as  though 
he  were  o^azino-  on  some  glorious  vision — *  in 
all  this  there  is  nothing  to  discompose  7is.  We 
can  be  qtiite  stire  that  He  lived,  and  that  He 
went  about  doing  good,  and  that  in  him  we  have, 
in  the  highest  sense,  everlasting  life. 

'  Let  71  s  then  no  longer  fight  against  the 
concltisions  of  science  and  of  criticism,  but 
rather  see  in  them  the  hand  of  God  driving  us, 
even  against  ottr  zvill,  away  from  beliefs  and 
teachings  that  are  not  really  those  of  His  son. 
If  we  do  not  do  this — if  zve  persist  in  idejitify- 
ing  the  false  Christianity  with  the  true — the 
false,  when  it  is  at  last  p kicked  rudely  away 
from  us,  as  it  must  be,  will  carry  away  a  part 
of  the  trite  with  it.     A  nd  as  long  as  zve  are  in 


BOOK  11.     CHAPTER  I.  in 

this  state  of  mind,  we  are  never  for  a  moment 
safe.  We  can  never  open  a  philological  review, 
or  Jiear  of  a  scientific  experiment,  without 
trembling.  Witness  the  discussions  now  en- 
gaging so  much  public  attention  on  the  sub- 
ject of  animal  automatism,  and  the  marvellous 
results  which  experiments  on  living  subjects 
have  of  late  days  revealed  to  tcs  ;  a  f'og  with 
half  a  brain  having  destroyed  more  theology 
than  all  the  doctors  of  the  Church  with  their 
whole  brains  can  ever  build  ^tp  again.  Thus 
does  God  choose  the  "  weak  things  of  this  zvorld 
to  confotmd  the  wise."  Seeing,  then,  that  this 
is  the  state  of  the  case,  %ue  should  surely  learn 
henceforth  not  to  identify  Christianity  with 
anything  that  science  can  assail,  or  even  ques- 
tion. Let  us  say  rather  that  nothing  is  or  can 
he  essential  to  the  religion  of  Christ  which, 
when  once  stated,  can  be  denied  without 
absttrdity.  If  zve  can  only  attain  to  this  con- 
ception, zve  shall  see  truly  that  this  our  faith  is 
indeed  one  "  that  no  man  taketh  away  from  ttsl 
'If  we  be  t/ms  once  ''  stab  lis  hed  in  the 
faith',''  all  human  history,  and  the  history  of 
Christianity  especially,  will  assume  for  us  a 
neiv  sacredness  and  a  new  significance.  We 
shall  recognise  gladly  its  long  struggles  of 
growth,  and  its  stmiggles  for  existerice,  and  sea 
how  in  all  these  were  at  wo7'k  the  great  prin- 


112  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

ciples  of  evohUion.  We  shall  see  hoiv  Clwistian 
perfection  emerged  gradually  otU  of  imper- 
fection— 7iay,  that  it  was  only  throngh  imper- 
fection that  this  perfection  was  possible.  For 
although,  as  we  now  know,  all  the  va7'ious 
theological  systems  that  'have  sprtmg  np  abotit 
Christianity,  and  have  been  so  long  C2irre7it, 
are  not  Ch7'istianity,  are  7nost  of  the77i,  i7ideed, 
not  even  sejise — yet  it  zvas  th7'ongh  these  that 
triLe  Ch7'istia7iity  7nade  its  zvay,  a7id  exte7ided 
itself  i7i  a  cor7^upt  and  ig7iora7tt  world.  For 
the  world  has  bee7i  give7i  fro7n  age  to  age  jnst 
so  much  of  the  truth  as  it  has  bee7i  able  to  bear, 
a7id  it  is  07ily,  let  tis  7'emember,  from  7^eceiving 
it  te77ipered  in  this  wise  proportio7i,  that  it  has 
bee7i  able  to  receive  it  at  all.  But  these  ti7nes 
of  the  wo7dd''s  p7'obation  are7ioiu  passi7ig  azvay. 
It  is  7101U  at  le7iQ-th  ceasing  to  be  under  "  tutors 
and  governors ;'"'  it  is  lea7'7iing  to  "  put  azoay 
childish  things.'"  It  is  co77ii7ig  to  a  se7ise  that 
it  is  71010  fitted  to  receive  Ch7dsfs  truth  pure, 
a7id  witJiout  a7iy  admi.rt2n^e  or  zv7^appage  of 
falsehood.  A7id  so,  as  it  looks  bach  over  all  the 
various  opinio7is  07ice  so  fie7rely  agitated  about 
religion,  it  recog7iises  in  all  of  them  a  comjno7i 
elemcid  of  good,  a7id  it  sees  that  all  tJieologia7is 
a7id  all  sects  have  really  agreed  with  one 
a7iother,  a7id  been  77iea7ii7ig  the  sa77ie  things 
eve7i  zuhe7i  they  least  suspected  or  zvished  it. 


BOOK  11.     CHAPTER   1.  113 

Nor  is  it,  as  modern  study  is  showing  tis, 
varieties  of  Christianity  only  that  this  deeper 
tuiity  binder  lies,  btct  all  other  religions  also. 
It  has  been  well  observed  by  a  g7'eat  Roman 
Catholic  writer  now  living,  that  zvhenever  any 
great  saint  lines  s  of  life  is  to  be  observed 
amongst  infidels  and  heretics,  it  is  always 
found  to  be  due  to  the  presence  of  certain  beliefs 
and  rtdes  which  belong  to  the  Catholics.  A  nd 
in  like  niaujicr,  we  may  say  too,  that  whenever 
any  great  saint liness  of  life  is  to  be  observed 
amongst  Catholics,  it  is  due  to  the  presence  of 
certain  beliefs  and  rules  that  belong  to  the 
infidels  and  the  heretics — and  indeed  to  all 
good  men,  no  matter  what  their  7'eligion  is. 

'  Such  are  the  viezvs  that  all  the  most  en- 
lightened men  of  our  ozun  day  are  coming  to. 
Btit  the  process  is  gradual ;  and  mcannliile  let 
us  not  rebuke  our  weaker  brethren,  if  for  the 
present  ^^  they  follow  not  after  us ;''  let  tts 
rather  bear  with  them.,  and  make  all  allowance 
for  them ;  for  zve  imist  remember,  as  I  have 
said  before,  that  those  evils  to  zvhich  they  still 
cling,  btit  from  which  zve,  under  God's  mercy, 
are  tiying  to  firee  oiirselves,  have  done  good 
se7'vice  in  their  time;  and  that  even  S2ich 
doctrines  as  those  of  eterjial  punishment,  or  of 
sacerdotal  absohition,  or  the  subtleties  of  sacra- 
mental systems,  or  the  mystical  paradoxes  of 


114  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

the  Athanasian  Creed,  have  assisted  in  the 
evolution  of  the  good — have  been,  in  some  sense, 
'^schoolmasters  to  bring  men  to  God!'  And 
eve7i  if  we  do  occasionally  co7ne  across  some 
incident  in  the  history  of  our  religion — some 
doctrine  or  body  of  doctrines,  which  seems, 
humanly  speaking,  to  subserve  no  good  end  at 
all — snch  as  our  own  Thirty-7iine  Articles — 
let  ns  not  sicffer  sncJi  to  try  our  faith,  but  let 
us  trust  in  God,  believing  that  in  His  secret 
councils  He  has  fotmd  some  fitting  use  even  for 
these;  because  we  knoiu  how  many  things  there 
are,  in  every  branch  of  inquiry,  that  we  cannot 
explain,  and  yet  zue  know  that  nothing  happens 
but  by  those  immutable  and  etemial  laws  zohich 
our  Heavenly  Father  has  Himself  ordained, 
and  of  which  He  is  Himself  the  highest 
synthesis. 

'  And  now!  said  the  Doctor,  with  a  fresh 
briskness  in  his  voice,  '  /  shall  pass  on  to  that 
wider  point  to  which  I  have  already  alluded, 
zvhich  is  indeed  that  which  I  zvish  chiefly  to 
impress  upon  you,  and  to  ivhich  all  that  I  have 
hitherto  said  has  been  preparatory.  We  have 
come  to  see  how  genuine  Christianity  has  been 
enabled  to  grow  ajid  extend  itself  only  through 
an  admixture  of  what  we  now  recognise  as  evil. 
And  seeing  this,  we  shall  be  led  on  to  a  con- 
clusion that  is  much  wider.     It  has  been  said 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  I.  115 

that  it  is  the  part  of  the  devil  to  see  in  good  the 
germs  of  evil.  Is  it  not  also  the  pa^'t  of  the 
devil  not  to  recognise  in  evil  the  germs  of  good? 
May  zve  not  indeed  say  zuith  St.  Attgustine, 
that  absolute  evil  is  impossible,  because,  if  we 
look  at  it  rightly,  it  is  ahvays  risi7ig  up  into 
good?  And  so,  may  we  not  recognise  in 
all  thhigs  the  presejice  and  the  providence  of 
God  f 

'  Perhaps  this  view  may  at  first  sight  seem 
diffictdt.  Some  of  us  may  find  that  zve  have  a 
certain  amount  of  pride  to  swallozv  before  we 
can  cheerfully  acquiesce  in  it.  It  is  not  an 
tincommon  thing  to  find  persons  zvho  secretly 
flatter  their  vanity  by  cherishing  a  gloomy  view 
of  the  world  and  of  mankind.  But  if  we  can 
only  get  free  from  these  littlenesses,  and  attain 
to  that  viezu  zvhich  I  have  indicated,  it  zvill  en- 
large and  ameliorate  07ir  ozvn  philosophy  of 
things,  and  bring  life  and  trtist  to  us,  in  the 
place  of  doubt  and  despondency.  Evil  will 
then  appear  to  7ts  simply  as  undeveloped  good 
— as  sojncthing  zvhich  zve  may  acquiesce  in 
without  complaining — as  something  that  has 
assisted  in  the  development  of  zvhatever  is 
good  in  the  present,  and  zvhich  zvill  itself  one 
day  become  good  in  the  fiUure.  Indeed  it  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  all  things,  in  a  certain 
setise,  existed  first  in  the  form  of  evil.     It  was 

I  2 


Ii6  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

not  till  after  the  Spirit  of  God  had  luorked  on 
the  primeval  matter  that  God  pronounced  the 
zuorld  to  be  "  very  good." 

'  And  so,  if  we  consider  the  subject  thus, 
we  shall  learn  to  p7tt  a  stop  to  all  those  fretfil 
waitings  over  the  badness  of  otir  own  times  of 
which  we  hear  so  much — zcailings  over  the  un- 
belief of  our  neighbours,  the  corruption  of 
society,  the  misery  of  the  poor,  the  luxtuy  of 
the  rich,  or  the  decline  of  commercial  morality. 
The  present  is  an  age  of  change,  a7id  is  there- 
fore at  every  turn  presenting  to  2is  some  nezv 
feature.  But  if  these  come  to  us  in  the 
apparent  guise  of  evils,  let  us  not  7iselessly 
bemoan  them ;  but  let  us  believe  that  they  are, 
even  if  we  cannot  see  that  it  is  so,  but  the 
beginnings,  the  embryos  of  new  good.  Indeed, 
by  the  eye  of  faith,  even  in  the  present  day, 
may  be  discerned  the  beaiitifil  spectacle  of  good 
actiially  shining  through  evil.  May  zue  not, 
for  instance,  disceini  the  well-being  of  the  rich 
through  the  misery  of  the  poor  ?  and  again, 
the  Jionest  industry  of  the  poor  throtigh  the 
idleness  of  the  rich  ? 

'  If,  then,  these  things  be  so,  surely  zve  may 
look  on  2inmovcd  at  the  orcat  chano;cs  and  com- 
motions  that  are  going  on  around  7ls,  and  the 
new  forms  that  society,  and  thought,  and 
politics  are  assuming,   even  although  for  the 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  I.  117 

moment  they  may  appear  th^'-eatening.  And 
if  in  this  great  storiii  our  Master  have  fallen 
asleep,  and  no  longer  speak  audibly  to  7is,  let 
us  not  be  of  little  faith  and  fear ftd,  and  try  to 
awaken  Him  with  our  foolish  cla^noicrs  ;  but 
let  us  trust  all  to  Him,  and  follow  His  ex- 
ample. For  really,  if  we  do  but  trust  in  God, 
there  is  no  ground  for  fear,  biU  ''  all  timtgs 
work  together  for  good  to  him  that  believeth." 
And,  however  the  matter  may  strike  us  at  first 
sight,  the  times  we  live  in  are  really  the  times 
that  are  best  fitted  for  71s  ;  and  ive  shall  see,  if 
we  will  but  think  soberly,  that  we  could  not,  as 
a  whole,  alter  anything  in  them  for  the  better. 
I  do  not  mean  that  ive  have  not  each  of  us  his 
own  work  marked  out  for  him  to  do  ;  but  all 
this  work  is  stjHctly  in  relatiofi  to  things  as 
they  are.  God  has  given  to  us  the  general 
conditions  ti7ider  which  ive  are  to  serve  Him, 
and  these  are  the  best  and  indeed  the  only  con- 
ditions for  us.  Doubtless,  if  we  each  do  the 
duty  that  lies  before  7ls,  these  conditions  will  be 
slowly  and  insensibly  changed  by  us  ;  but  we 
shall  ourselves  change  also,  as  zvell  as  the  con- 
ditions ;  what  I  mean  is,  that  su-pposing  by  a 
sudden  act  of  zvill  we  could  do  ivhat  zve  pleased 
with  the  conditions  of  the  age,  we,  being  as  we 
are,  shotUd  not  be  really  able  to  make  the  age 
better.     We  should  not  be  really  able  to  make 


Ii8  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

it  different.  Any  Utopia  zve  might  i^nagine 
wonld,  if  it  were  a  thinkable  one,  be  only  our 
own  age  in  a  masquerading  dress.  For  we 
cannot  escape  from  our  age,  or  add,  except  in  a 
very  small  degree,  anything  that  is  really  new 
to  it.  Nor  7ieed  we  zvish  to  do  so.  Our  age 
is  for  us  the  best  age  possible.  We  are  its 
children,  and  it  is  our  only  true  pa^^ent.  But 
though  we  cannot  alter  our  time  at  a  stroke,  so 
to  speak,  no,  not  even  in  imagination,  we  can 
all  of  2CS  help  to  do  so  little  by  little,  if  we  do 
cheerfully  the  duties  that  are  set  before  us. 
And  if  we  do  this,  which  is  what  Christ  bids 
us  to  do,  then  is  Christ  made  manifest  in  us, 
and  lives  in  the  hearts  of  every  one  of  us  ;  and 
in  a  far  higher  sense  than  any  mere  physical 
one,  He  is  risen  f'om  the  dead.  And  if  Hebe 
not  so  risen  in  and  for  tts,  then  are  we  indeed, 
as  the  Apostle  says,  '' of  all  men  most  miser- 
able!^ 

'  Let  2is  therefore,  luith  a  large  hope  for 
the  futiire,  and  a  cheerful  contentment  with 
the  present,  be  willing  to  leave  the  zvorld  ifi  the 
hands  of  God,  knowing  that  He  has  given  us 
what  conditions  and  what  circumstances  are 
best  for  us.  Let  us  see  all  things  in  God,  and 
let  us  become  in  Hi7n,  as  Plato  says,  ^^ spectators 
of  all  time,  and  of  all  existence.'"  And  t/ms, 
in  spite  of  the  difficulties  presented  to  us  by 


BOOK  11.     CHAPTER  I.  119 

"  all  the  evil  that  is  done  ^mder  the  stin^'  we 

shall  perceive  that  all  things  zvill,  nay  imist, 

come    right    in     God's    ozun    time ;    and  the 

■  apparent  dualism   of  good  and  evil  at   last 

become  a  glorious  tinity  of  good.     Btit  let  us 

remember  also   that    ''the  Kingdom  of  God 

Cometh  not  with  observation  ; "  and  I  would 

conclude  my  sermon  with  certai}i   memorable 

words  spoken  by  Christ  Himself,  though  7m- 

fortunatcly  not  to  be  found  in  the  Gospels,  btii 

preserved  to  21s  by    Clement   of  Alexandria. 

"  The  Lord,"  Clement  tells  us,   ''  being  asked 

when  His  kingdom  shotdd  come,  said,  When 

two  shall  be  one,  and  that  zvhich  is  zvithout  as 

that  zvhich  is  within,  and  the  male  with  the 

female — neither  male  nor  female.'' 

' And  now '  (at  the  sound  of  this 

word  the  whole  congregation  rose  automatic- 
ally to  their  feet),  '  I  will  ask  you,'  the  Doctor 
went  on  after  a  pause,  '  to  conclude  this  morn- 
ing's service  by  doing  what  I  trust  I  have 
shown  that  all  here  may  sincerely  and  honestly 
do.  •  I  mean,  I  will  ask  you  to  recite  after  me 
the  Apostles'  Creed.' 

This  appeal  took  the  whole  congregation 
quite  aback.  But  there  was  no  time  for  won- 
der. Dr.  Jenkinson  at  once  began  ;  nor  was 
his  voice  the  only  sound  in  the  theatre.  Lady 
Ambrose,  pleased,  after  all  that  she  had  heard 


I20  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

the  night  previous,  to  make  pubhc  profession 
of  her  faith,  especially  in  a  place  where  it  could 
not  be  called  in  question,  followed  the  Doctor 
audibly  and  promptly  ;  Miss  Prattle  followed 
Lady  Ambrose  ;  Lady  Violet  Gresham,  who 
was  busy  with  one  of  her  sleeve-links,  followed 
Miss  Prattle  ;  Lady  Grace,  from  quite  another 
part  of  the  house,  followed  Dr.  Jenkinson  on 
her  own  account  ;  Mr.  Stockton  repeated  the 
first  clause  in  a  loud  voice,  and  then  relapsed 
into  marked  silence  ;  Mr.  Luke  only  opened 
his  lips  to  sigh  out  audibly  in  the  middle  a 
disconsolate  '  Heigh  ho!'  Mr.  Storks  blew  his 
nose  with  sino^ular  vio-our  throuQfh  the  whole 
proceeding ;  Mrs.  Sinclair,  just  towards  the 
end,  tapped  Leslie's  arm  gently  with  her  fan, 
and  said  to  him  in  a  whisper,  '  Do  you  really 
believe  all  this  ? ' 

When  all  was  over,  when  the  Doctor  had 
solemnly  pronounced  the  last  '  Amen,'  he 
looked  about  him  nervously  for  a  moment,  as 
if  the  question  of  how  to  retire  becomingly 
suddenly  dawned  upon  him.  Luckily  he 
perceived  almost  directly  a  servant  standing 
in  readiness  by  the  curtain.  The  Doctor 
frowned  slightly  at  the  man ;  made  a  slightly 
impatient  gesture  at  him  ;  and  Faust  and 
the  young  witch  again  covered  the  preacher 
from  the  eyes  of  his  congregation. 


ROOK  11.     CHAPTER  II.  121 


CHAPTER   11. 

>HE  blinds  were  half-down  at 
luncheon  in  the  dining-room,  to 
keep  out  the  brilliant  summer  sun. 
The  guests  dropped  in  by  ones  and 
twos,  somewhat  tired  and  exhausted  by  the 
divine  service  of  the  morning  ;  and  the  sight  of 
the  table  was  not  a  little  refreshing  to  them,  as 
it  shone  whitely  in  the  soft  gloom,  with  its 
flowers  and  ferns,  and  its  day-lit  glimmer  of 
glass  and  silver.  Soon,  however,  a  piece  of 
news  was  circulated  that  was  even  more  re- 
freshing than  the  luncheon.  Dr.  Jenkinson, 
owing  to  his  late  exertions,  and  the  gas-light, 
and  the  draughts  upon  the  stage,  was  suffer- 
ing from  a  headache,  which  inclined  him  to 
keep  his  room  ;  and  accordingly  an  unhoped- 
for prospect  of  freely  discussing  the  sermon 
dawned  brightly  upon  the  whole  party. 

Mr.  Stockton,  who  had  been  much  struck 
with  the  strictly  prosaic  style  of  Dr.  Jenkin- 
son's  discourse,  and  who  had  been  secretly 
contrasting  this  with  the   more  impassioned 


122  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

character  of  his  own  mind,  was  the  first  to 
begin. 

'  The  sermon  was  perhaps  ingenious;  he 
said,  turning  to  Lady  Ambrose,  'but  I'm  afraid 
our  friend's  forte  is  certainly  not  poetry.' 

'  Surely,'  said  Donald  Gordon  with  ex- 
treme solemnity  of  manner  and  only  a  slight 
twinkle  in  his  eye,  '  his  forte  is  something  far 
better  Poetry  can  only  make  us  happy  for 
a  little  while.  Such  doctrines  as  we  have 
heard  this  morning  ought  to  make  us  happy 
always.' 

As  for  Lady  Ambrose,  to  whom  both 
these  remarks  were  addressed,  she  was  in 
doubt  what  altogether  to  think  of  the  matter. 
More  than  half  her  heart  inclined  her  to  look 
upon  Dr.  Jenkinson  as  a  valuable  ally ;  but 
there  was  yet,  all  the  while,  a  fatal  something 
that  whispered  to  her  a  vague  distrust  of  him. 
She  was  therefore  waiting  anxiously  to  hear 
what  would  be  said  by  others,  before  taking 
any  side  herself;  her  mind  all  the  while  being 
busy  with  the  profoundest  questions.  This 
suspense  of  judgment  produced  a  certain 
gravity  and  depression  in  her,  which  was 
visible  on  her  face,  and  which  seemed  to  com- 
municate itself  to  nearly  everyone  at  her  end 
of  the  table.  For  Lady  Ambrose  was  a 
communicative  woman.     Her  spirits,  good  or 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  IL  123 

bad,  were  generally  caught  by  those  near  her. 
As  for  Mr.  Herbert,  however,  no  one  else 
seemed  needed  to  depress  Imn.  Low,  slow, 
and  melancholy,  his  accents  at  once  caught 
the  ear  of  Lady  Ambrose. 

'  I  have  heard  to-day,'  he  said  to  Mrs. 
Sinclair,  who  was  sitting  next  him,  '  an 
entirely  new  and  in  every  way  memorable 
doctrine,  which  I  never  heard  before  from  the 
mouth  of  man,  woman,  or  child  ;  nor  can  I 
tell  by  what  steps  any  human  being  could 
have  arrived  at  it.  I  have  heard  that  the 
world — the  world  as  it  is— could  not  be  better 
than  it  is  ;  that  there  is  no  real  sorrow  in  it — 
no  real  evil — no  real  sin.' 

'  Poor  Dr.  Jenkinson ! '  said  Mrs.  Sinclair, 
also  in  a  melancholy  voice  ;  '  I  suppose  he 
has  never  loved.' 

*  Ah,'  exclaimed  Mr.  Stockton, — his  voice 
was  melancholy  as  well — '  the  whole  teach- 
ings of  that  school  have  always  seemed  to  me 
nothing  more  than  a  few  fragments  of  science 
imperfectly  understood,  obscured  by  a  few 
fragments  of  Christianity  imperfectly  re- 
membered.' 

'  You  forget,'  said  Leslie,  'that  Dr.  Jenkin- 
son's  Christianity  is  really  a  new  firm  trading 
under  an  old  name,  and  trying  to  purchase 
the  goodwill  of  the  former  establishment.' 


124  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

Lady  Ambrose,  who  had  not  hked  Leslie 
so  much  on  further  acquaintance  as  she  had 
at  first  expected  she  should,  was  very  indig- 
nant at  him  for  so  flippant  a  speech  as  this — 
she  felt  sure  it  was  flippant,  though  she  did 
not  quite  understand  its  meaning — but  once 
again  Mr.  Herbert's  grave  accents  arrested 
her. 

'  It  is  simply,'  he  was  saying  to  Mrs. 
Sinclair,  evidently  alluding  to  the  same  subject 
— '  it  is  simply  our  modern  atheism  trying 
to  hide  its  own  nakedness,  for  the  benefit  of 
the  more  prudish  part  of  the  public,  in  the 
cast  grave-clothes  of  a  Christ  who,  whether 
he  be  risen  or  no,  is  very  certainly,  as  the 
angel  said,  not  here.' 

'  All  discussion  of  such  matters  seems  to 
me  but  a  diseased  activity,'  said  Mr.  Rose, 
raising  languidly  a  white  deprecating  hand. 

Mr.  Storks  too,  though  for  different 
reasons,  was  apparently  of  the  same  opinion. 

'  In  his  main  points,'  he  said  with  a  severe 
doo-matism  that  seemed  desicrned  to  end  all 
further  controversy,  '  and  putting  aside  his 
quasi-religious  manner  of  expressing  it — 
which  considering  his  position  may  be  par- 
doned— I  conceive  Dr.  Jenkinson  to  have 
been  entirely  right.' 

Hitherto  Lady  Ambrose's  views  had  been 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  II.  125 

wavering  to  and  fro,  in  a  sad  uncertainty. 
But  now  her  mind  at  once  cleared.  Her 
worst  suspicions  of  the  Doctor  were  con- 
firmed by  this  fatal  commendation.  The 
gloom  on  her  face  deepened,  and  she  had  a 
look  almost  of  distress  about  her  as  she 
turned  to  Laurence. 

'  You  look  tired,'  he  said  to  her. 

'No,'  said  Lady  Ambrose  wearily:  'at 
least,  perhaps  I  am  a  little.  Do  you  know,  I 
always  think  one  feels  rather  dull  if  one 
doesn't  get  the  letters  one  expects.' 

'  Perhaps  you  don't  know,'  said  Laurence, 
*  that  the  letters  you  got  this  morning  were 
only  those  of  last  night's  post.  Our  Sunday 
letters  we  are  obliged  to  send  for,  and  they 
don't  generally  come  till  later  on  in  the 
day.' 

'  Really  ! '  exclaimed  Lady  Ambrose,  with 
surprise,  as  a  smile  slowly  spread  over  her 
face,  and  her  frank  eyes  lit  up  again.  '  The 
Duchess  couldn't  have  forgotten  it,'  she  said 
to  herself  half-consciously.  Strangely  enough, 
a  new  warmth,  it  seemed,  had  dawned  upon 
her,  and  her  ice-bound  Qrloom  beran  to  thaw 
— to  thaw  only,  however,  not  to  evaporate. 
It  did  not  go  ;  it  only  became  voluble. 

'  Do  you  know,  Mr.  I.aurence,'  she  began, 
'  I    have   been  thinking  over  and  over  again 


126  THE  A'EJV  REPUBLIC. 

about  many  of  the  things  that  were  said  last 
night ;  and  I  really  am  afraid  that  the  world 
is  getting  very  bad.  It  is  very  sad  to  think 
so ;  but,  with  all  this  infidelity  and  wicked- 
ness of  which  we  hear  so  much,  I'm  afraid  it 
is  true.  For  my  own  part,  you  know,  there 
is  nothino-  I  dislike  so  much  as  to  hear  the 
Bible  profanely  spoken  about ;  though,  of 
course,  I  know  one  is  tempted  sometimes 
to  make  jokes  out  of  it  oneself.  And  then,' 
Lady  Ambrose  added — her  ideas  did  not 
always  follow  one  another  in  the  strictest 
order — '  hardly  a  week  passes  without  some 
new  scandal.  I  had  a  letter  only  this  morn- 
ing, telling  me  all  the  particulars  about  Colonel 
Eardly  and  poor  Lady  Arthur.  And  that 
man,  you  know — ^just  fancy  it ! — it  will  not 
be  very  long  before  we  shall  be  obliged  to 
receive  him  again.  However,'  said  Lady 
Ambrose,  with  a  slightly  more  cheerful 
accent,  '  that  sort  of  thing,  I  believe,  is  con- 
fined to  us.  The  middle  classes  are  all  riofht 
— at  least,  one  always  hears  so.' 

At  this  moment  Lord  Allen's  voice  was 
heard. 

'  But  now,'  Lady  Ambrose  went  on  to 
Laurence,  very  slightly  moving  her  head  in 
the  direction  of  Lord  Allen,  and  speaking  in 
a  low  tone,  '  how  different  he  is  ! ' 


BOOK  11.     CHAPTER  II.  127 

Lady  Ambrose  had  the  greatest  admira- 
tion for  Lord  Allen,  though  her  acquaintance 
with  him  had  hitherto  been  of  the  slightest ; 
and  Laurence,  not  knowing  how  to  respond 
to  all  her  late  remarks,  was  glad  that  her 
attention  was  thus  called  elsewhere. 

'  Don't  you  think,'  Allen  was  saying,  half 
addressing  himself  to  Mr.  Herbert,  half  to 
Mr.  Luke,  '  that  though  at  the  present 
moment  things  as  they  are  may  be  worse 
than  they  have  ever  been  before,  there 
are  yet  ideas  amongst  us  of  things  as  they 
might  be,  that  are  in  advance  of  what  has 
ever  been  before  ?  I  know  quite  well  how 
society  is  falling  to  pieces,  and  how  all  our 
notions  of  duty  are  becoming  confused  or 
lost.  I  know  too  how  utterly  without  any 
religion  we  are' — (Lady  Ambrose  started) — 
*  at  least,  any  religion  that  one  man  can  ex- 
press to  another,  and  that  can  enable  men  to 
act  in  concert.  But  still,  I  can't  help  feeling 
that,  in  spite  of  all  this,  a  higher  class  of  con- 
ceptions both  of  religion  and  morality,  and 
social  relations  also,  is  forming  itself  in  the 
minds  of  thinking  men.' 

'Perfectly  true.  Lord  Allen,'  said  Mr. 
Luke,  '  perfectly  true  !  It  is  indeed  the  very 
essence  of  the  cultured  classes  to  be  beyond 
their  time — to  have,   indeed,  every  requisite 


128  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

for  making  everything  better,  except  the  prac- 
tical power.  As  you  say,  what  man's  life 
ought  to  be — what  true  morality  is — what  is 
true  sense,  and  what  is  true  nonsense — these 
are  matters  never  at  any  time  distinguished 
so  truly  as  by  some  of  us  in  the  latter  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  Only,  unfortunately,' 
said  Mr.  Luke,  sighing  slowly,  and  looking 
round  the  table,  '  the  dense  ignorance  of  the 
world  at  large  hampers  and  hinders  such  men 
as  these,  so  that  all  that  their  teaching  an.d 
their  insight  can  do,  is  only  to  suggest  a 
Utopia  in  the  future,  instead  of  leading  to 
any  reality  in  the  present.' 

'All  my  happiness  is  in  a  kind  of  Utopia,' 
sighed  Mrs.  Sinclair. 

'Yes — yes,' said  Mr.  Luke  wearily;  'so 
in  these  days  must  be  the  happiness  of  all  of 
us — except  that  of  the  world  at  large.' 

Mr.  Storks  was  here  heard  clearing  his 
throat.  With  an  ominous  pugilistic  smile  he 
turned  towards  Mr.  Luke. 

'  Are  you  quite  sure,'  he  said,  '  that  the 
reason  why  your  friends  do  nothing  practical 
is  not  because  they  will  build  Utopias  ?  I, 
as  I  have  already  said,  entirely  hold  with  Dr. 
Jenkinson  that  the  world  is  as  good  as  it  can 
be — has,  indeed,  been  always  as  good  as  it 
could  l"Lave  been — has,   that  is,  been  always 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  II.  129 

persistently  progressing  by  one  constant 
course  of  evolution.  I  don't  myself  profess 
to  be  a  student  of  history  ;  but,  as  far  as  I  at 
all  understand  its  teachings,  the  one  thing  it 
most  clearly  shows  to  us  is,  that  what  strikes 
a  superficial  observer  as  simply  the  decadence 
of  old  orders  of  things,  is  really,  under  the 
surface,  the  birth  of  the  new.  Indeed,'  said 
Mr.  Storks,  shrugging  his  shoulders,  *  of  course 
it  must  be  so.  We  are  all  part  of  Nature  ; 
and,  little  as  we  think  it,  we  are  all  working 
together  by  invincible  and  inviolable  laws. 
Nature  will  have  her  own  way ;  and  those 
who  have  studied  her  carefully  know  that  her 
way  is  always  the  best.  Even  supposing  we 
could  transplant  ourselves  into  some  different, 
some  more  advanced  state  of  society,  my  dear 
sir,  do  you  think  we  should  be  any  happier 
there  ?  As  much  happier,  I  suppose,  as  you 
or  I  should  be  if  we  were  translated  into  the 
heaven  our  nurses  used  to  tell  us  of,  where 
nothing  was  done  but  to  sing  Tate  and  Brady's 
psalms  with  the  angels  to  all  eternity.  The 
air  of  our  own  age  is  the  only  air  fit  for  us 
In  any  other  we  should  languish.' 

'  I  languish  in  this,'  said  Mr.  Luke,  looking 
up  to  the  ceiling. 

Scarcely  were  the  words  out  of  his  mouth 
than  Mr,  Saunders  exclaimed,  in  his  most  ex- 

K 


130  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

cited  and  shrillest  voice,  '  I  deny  it — I  entirely 
deny  it ! ' 

Mr.  Luke  was  thunderstruck.  Even  Mr. 
Storks  was  taken  aback  by  the  audacity  of  the 
contradiction;  and  as  for  the  rest  of  the  com- 
pany, they  could  not  conceive  where  on  earth 
Mr.  Saunders  had  left  his  manners.  Mr. 
Storks,  however,  was  still  more  astonished, 
and  still  less  pleased,  when  he  discovered,  as 
Mr.  Saunders  proceeded,  what  was  the  real 
meaning  of  his  speech. 

'  I  entirely  deny,'  Mr.  Saunders  went  on, 
*  that  the  ways  of  Nature  are  the  best  ways. 
The  belief  that  they  are  so  is  of  all  faiths  the 
one  that  most  obviously  contradicts  experi- 
ence. Did  I  accept  this,  I  could  accept  any- 
thing— Transubstantiation  even.  I  should 
literally  feel  that  I  had  no  right  to  condemn 
any  doctrine  because  it  was  groundless,  gra- 
tuitous, and  absurd.  This  faith  in  the  good- 
ness of  Nature — why,  that  it  is  a  faith,  is  not 
that  enough  to  condemn  it  ?  What  but  faith, 
let  me  ask,  has  enslaved  and  stunted  the  world 
hitherto  ?  And  this  particular  faith,  I  would 
remind  you,  which  you  flatter  yourself  will 
oppose  religion,  has  been  in  most  cases  its 
child,  and  is  always  ready  to  be  its  parent. 
I  on  the  contrary  maintain  that,  far  from  being 
the  best,   Nature  is  the  most  odious  of  things 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  II.  131 

— that  the  whole  universe  is  constructed 
on  the  most  hateful  principles  ;  in  fact,  that 
out  of  the  primordial  atoms  only  one  thing  has 
developed  itself  in  which  the  good  outweighs 
the  evil ;  and  that  is  the  one  thing  that  is 
usually  opposed  to  Nature — man,  and  the 
reason  of  man.' 

Mr.  Storks  turned  sharply  round,  and,  with 
an  awful  look  in  his  eyes  of  contemptuous 
indignation,  stared  Mr.  Saunders  into  silence. 
He  held  him  fixed  in  this  way  for  a  few 
moments,  and  then  said  to  him  in  a  voice  of 
grim  unconcern,  '  May  I  trouble  you  for  the 
mustard.'  Then  again  turning  to  Mr.  Luke, 
'  You  see,'  he  proceeded,  '  what  I  take  to  be 
civilisation — indeed,  the  whole  duty  of  man — 
is  the  gradual  self-adaptation  of  the  human 
organism  to  its  environment — an  adaptation 
which  must  take  place,  and  any  attempts  to 
hinder  which  are  simply  neither  more  nor  less 
than  disease.  Progress,  which  it  is  our  high- 
est life  to  further,  is  a  thing  that  will  continue 
despite  the  opposition  of  individuals.  Its 
tendencies  are  beyond  the  control  of  indivi- 
duals, and  are  to  be  sought  in  the  spirit  of  the 
age  at  large, — not — if  you  will  forgive  me  the 
word — in  the  crotchets  of  this  or  that  thinker. 
And   it  seem.s  to  me  to  be  the  hopeful  and 

distinguishing  feature  of  the  present  day,  that 
p.2 


132  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

men  are  learning  generally  to  recognise  this 
truth — that  they  are  learning  not  to  cry  out 
against  progress,  but  to  investigate  its  grand 
and  inevitable  laws,  and  submit  themselves 
willingly  to  them.  And  the  tendency  of  our 
own  day  is,  I  am  proud  to  say,  a  tendency 
towards  firm,  solid,  verifiable  knowledge,  and, 
as  a  result  of  this,  towards  the  acquisition  of 
a  firm  and  solid  happiness  also.' 

*  To  me,'  said  Mr.  Herbert,  'It  seems 
rather  that  the  only  hope  for  the  present  age 
lies  in  the  possibility  of  some  individual 
wiser  than  the  rest  getting  the  necessary 
power,  and  in  the  most  arbitrary  way  possible 
putting  a  stop  to  this  progress — utterly 
stamping  out  and  obliterating  every  general 
tendency  peculiar  to  our  own  time.  Mr. 
Storks  will  perhaps  think  me  very  foolish. 
Perhaps  I  am.  I  freely  own  that  I  could 
more  easily  tell  a  good  action,  if  I  saw  it,  than 
a  good  piece  of  protoplasm,  and  that  I  think 
the  understanding  of  a  holy  moral  law,  by 
which  an  individual  may  live,  of  infinitely 
more  importance  than  the  discovery  of  all  the 
laws  of  progress  in  the  world.  But  let  Mr. 
Storks  despise  me,  and  not  be  angry  with 
me ' 

*  My    dear    sir,'    interposed    Mr.    Storks, 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  11.  133 

with  a  gruff  courtesy,  '  why  should  I  do  either 
the  one  or  the  other  ? ' 

'  Because,'  said  Mr.  Herbert,  slightly 
waving  his  hand,  and  speaking  with  great 
emphasis,  *  had  I  only  the  power,  I  would 
myself  put  a  forcible  stop  to  all  this  evolution. 
I  would  make  a  clean  sweep  of  all  the  im- 
provements that  the  present  day  so  much 
vaunts.  I  would  collect  an  army  of  strong, 
serviceable,  honest  workmen,  and  send  them 
to  blow  up  Manchester,  and  Birmingham, 
and  Liverpool,  and  Leeds,  and  Wolverhamp- 
ton  ' 

*  And  all  the  artisans  in  them  ? '  asked  Mr. 
Storks. 

*  Well,'  said  Mr.  Herbert,  smiling,  *  I 
would,  perhaps,  give  the  artisans  notice  of 
this  gunpowder  plot  of  mine.  And  yet  their 
existence  has  always  presented  a  painful 
difficulty  to  me.  For  if  there  is  no  other 
life,  I  think  they  have  a  very  bad  time  of  it 
here  ;  and  if  there  is  another  life,  I  think  that 
they  will  all  certainly  be  damned.  But  it  is 
not  only  Manchester  and  Birmingham  that  I 
would  blow  up.  I  would  blow  up  also  every 
anatomical  museum  in  the  land,  save  such  as 
were  absolutely  necessary  for  the  use  of  pro- 
fessional doctors,  that  the  foul  sights  in  them 
should  not  taint  men's  imaginations,  and  give 


134  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

them  an  appetite  for  beastly  knowledge.  I 
would  destroy  every  railwa)',  and  nearly  every 
steam-engine  ;  and  I  would  do  a  number  of 
other  things  of  a  like  sort,  by  way  of  prepar- 
ing the  ground  for  a  better  state  of  society. 
Indeed,  so  far  am  I  from  believing  that  an 
entirely  different  and  better  state  of  society  is 
unthinkable,  that  I  believe  it  to  be  not  im- 
practicable ;  and  I  am  at  the  present  moment 
collecting  money,  from  such  as  will  here  and 
there  confide  in  me,  for  the  purpose  of  pur- 
chasing land,  and  of  founding  a  community 
upon  what  seem  to  me  to  be  true  and 
healthful  principles — a  Utopia,  in  fact — in 
which  I  trust  may  be  once  again  realised 
upon  earth  those  two  things  to  which  we  are 
now  such  strangers — order  and  justice.' 

*  I  once  began  a  book  about  justice,'  said 
Laurence,  '  on  the  model  of  Plato's  Re- 
public' 

'  What  is  Plato's  Republic  ? '  said  Lady 
Ambrose.     '  Tell  me.' 

'It  is  a  book,'  said  Laurence,  'which 
describes  the  meeting  of  a  party  of  friends, 
who  fell  discussing  high  topics  just  as  we 
are  doing,  and,  amongst  others,  What  is 
justice  ?  ' 

'  What !'  exclaimed  Lady  Ambrose.  '  Did 
not  they  know  that  ? ' 


BOOK  11.     CHAPTER  II.  135 

'  You  forget,'  said  Laurence, '  that  this  was 
very  long  ago.' 

*  To  be  sure,'  said  Lady  Ambrose  ;  '  and 
they  were  of  course  all  heathens.  Well — 
and  what  conclusions  did  they  come  to  as  to 
the  nature  of  justice  ?' 

'  At  first,'  said  Laurence, '  though  Socrates 
himself  was  amongst  them,  they  were  all  com- 
pletely at  a  loss  how  to  define  it.  But  at  last 
they  hit  upon  the  notion  of  constructing  an 
ideal  perfect  state,  in  which  of  course  justice 
would  be  lurking  somewhere.  Now  there 
are  in  life,  Plato  says,  four  great  virtues — 
wisdom,  courage,  temperance,  and  justice ; 
and  no  sooner  has  the  ideal  state  been  con- 
structed, than  it  appears  that  three  of  these 
virtues  are  specially  illustrated  and  embodied, 
each  in  a  particular  class  of  citizens.  Thus, 
wisdom  is  specially  embodied  in  the  theore- 
tical politicians  and  religious  speculators  of 
the  day  ;  courage  is  embodied  in  the  practical 
men  who  maintain  and  execute  the  regula- 
tions and  orders  of  the  philosophers ;  and 
temperance  is  embodied  in  the  commercial 
and  industrial  classes,  who  loyally  submit  them- 
selves to  their  betters,  and  refrain  from 
meddling  in  matters  that  are  too  high  for 
them.  And  now,  where  is  justice  ?  In  what 
class  is  that  embodied  specially  } ' 


136  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  In  the  judges  and  the  magistrates  and 
the  poHcemen,'  said  Lady  Ambrose. 

'No,'  said  Laurence  ;  '  it  is  pecuHar  to  no 
class.  It  resides  in  all.  It  is  that  virtue 
which  enables  the  others  to  exist  and  to  con- 
tinue.' 

'  But  surely,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  '  all 
that  is  not  what  we  mean  by  justice  now  ? ' 

'  Certainly  not,'  said  Laurence  ;  '  and  my 
book  was  designed  to  investigate  what  justice 
is,  as  it  exists  now.  I,  like  Plato,  constructed 
a  state,  making  it,  however,  a  real  rather  than 
an  ideal  picture.  But  when  I  had  done  this, 
I  could  find  no  earnest  thinking  class  to  re- 
present  wisdom  ;  no  class  of  practical  poli- 
ticians that  would  carry  out  even  the  little 
wisdom  they  knew,  and  so  represent  courage  ; 
and  certainly  no  commercial  or  industrial  class 
that  would  refrain  for  a  single  day  from 
meddling  in  matters  that  were  too  high  for 
them,  and  so  represent  temperance.  So  I 
analysed  life  in  a  somewhat  different  way.  I 
divided  it  into  happiness,  misery,  and  justice. 
I  then  at  once  discovered  that  the  rich  repre- 
sented all  the  happiness  of  which  we  are  now 
capable,  and  the  poor  all  the  misery  ;  and  that 
justice  was  that  which  set  this  state  of  things 
going  and  enabled  it  to  continue,' 

'  Ah,  Laurence, '  exclaimed  Mr.   Herbert, 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  II.  137 

clapping  his  hands  gently  in  sad  applause,  '  I 
like  that.  I  wish  you  had  worked  out  this 
idea  more  fully.' 

'  Suppose,'  exclaimed  Leslie,  '  that  we  try 
this  afternoon  to  construct  a  Utopia  ourselves. 
Let  us  embody  our  notions  of  life  as  it  ought 
to  be  in  a  new  Republic' 

'  Well,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  '  I  am  not  a 
Conservative  ;  I  don't  object.  I'm  sure  at 
any  rate  that  there  is  much  we  could  all  of  us 
alter,  if  we  only  had  our  own  way.' 

*  Much,'  said  Lady  Grace,  with  severe 
briskness. 

'  Much,'  said  Miss  Merton,  with  a  soft, 
half-serious  smile. 

'  Much,'  said  Lord  Allen,  catching  eagerly 
at  the  idea, 

'  Well,  then,'  said  Laurence,  '  let  us  all  do 
our  best  to  give  those  airy  somethings,  our 
aspirations,  a  local  habitation  and  a  name.' 

The  majority  of  the  company  took  very 
kindly  to  the  proposal.  Lady  Grace  was 
especially  pleased,  as  it  seemed  to  provide  at 
once  a  whole  afternoon's  occupation  for  the 
party  ;  and  it  was  arranged  accordingly  that 
as  soon  as  luncheon  was  over  they  should 
adjourn  for  castle-building  to  a  shady  spot  in 
the  garden. 


138  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 


CHAPTER    III. 

*UIDED  by  Lady  Grace,  the  guests 
gradually  converged  after  lun'cheon 
towards  the  appointed  spot,  strag- 
gling thither  by  various  ways,  and 
in  desultory  groups ;  passing  down  broad 
flights  of  steps  flanked  by  gods  and  goddesses, 
and  along  straight  terraces  set  with  vases  and 
Irish  yews  ;  while  busts  of  orators,  poets,  and 
philosophers,  with  Latin  inscriptions,  glim- 
mered to  right  and  left  of  them  in  groves  of 
laurels;  and  scaly  Tritons,  dappled  with 
green  lichens,  spouted  up  water  in  the  middle 
of  gleaming  basins.  Everything  was  to- 
day looking  at  its  loveliest.  There  was  an 
unusual  freshness  in  the  warm  summer  air. 
Beyond  the  green  shrubs  the  sea  shone  bright 
and  blue ;  and  through  the  shrubs  the  sea- 
breeze  moved  and  whispered. 

Laurence  strolled  slowly  on  behind  with 
Miss  Merton,  choosing  a  path  which  none  of 
the  others  had  taken. 

'  How  delicious  this  is  ! '  said  Miss  Merton, 


BOOK  IT.     CHAPTER  III.  139 

lifting  her  hat  to  enjoy  the  breeze  upon  her 
forehead.  '  Nobody  could  be  in  bad  spirits 
in  a  place  like  this.  There  is  something  so 
fresh  and  living  everywhere,  and  even  when 
we  lose  sight  of  the  sea  we  still  hear  it' 

'  Yes,'  said  Laurence.  '  I  believe  these 
gardens  are  like  Keats's  island.  There  is 
no  recess  in  them 

Not  haunted  by  the  murmurous  sound  of  waves.' 

•  '  And  how  perfectly  everything  is  kept  ! 
What  gardeners  you  must  have  ! '  said  Miss 
Merton,  as  they  turned  up  a  narrow  winding- 
walk,  thickly  set  on  either  side  with  carefully- 
trimmed  laurels. 

The  whole  place  was,  indeed,  as  Miss 
Merton  said,  kept  perfectly.  Not  a  weed 
was  on  the  grey  gravel ;  not  a  single  twig 
called  for  pruning.  Every  vase  they  passed 
was  full  of  the  most  delicious  flowers.  Over- 
head the  branches  of  limes  and  of  acacia- 
trees  murmured  gaily.  Everything  seemed 
to  be  free  from  care,  and  to  be  laughing, 
light  of  heart,  in  the  bright  weather. 

'  I  am  taking  you  this  way,'  said  Laurence, 
'  because  I  want  to  show  you  what  I  think 
may  perhaps  interest  you.' 

As  he  spoke  these  words,  a  sudden  bend 
in  the  walk  brought  them  face  to  face  with 


I40  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

something  that  gave  Miss  Merton  a  sudden 
sensation  of  surprise.  It  was  a  small  classical 
portico  built  in  a  style  of  the  most  severe 
simplicity,  through  which  by  an  iron  gate  one 
passed  into  an  open  space  beyond.  What 
surprised  Miss  Merton  on  seeing  this  was  the 
singular  sense  of  desolation  and  dreariness 
that  seemed  all  at  once  to  come  over  her. 
The  iron  gates  before  her  were  a  mass  of  rust ; 
the  portico,  which  had  once  been  white,  was 
weather-stained  into  a  dismal  grey  ;  the  stone, 
too,  it  was  built  of  was  scaling  off  in  almost 
every  place,  and  the  fragments  lay  unheeded 
as  they  had  fallen  upon  the  ground.  Here, 
amongst  everything  that  spoke  of  the  utmost 
care,  was  one  object  that  spoke  of  entire 
forgetfulness  and  neglect.  They  approached 
in  silence,  and  Miss  Merton  looked  in  through 
the  bars  of  the  rusty  gate.  The  scene  that 
met  her  eyes  was  one  of  greater  desolation 
still.  It  was  a  circular  plot  of  ground,  fenced 
round  by  a  low  stone  wall  that  was  sur- 
mounted by  spiked  railings.  It  looked  as 
though  it  might  have  been  once  a  flower 
garden,  but  it  was  now  a  wilderness.  Outside 
its  boundary  rose  the  rare  and  beautiful  trees 
of  the  happy  tended  shrubberies.  Inside  were 
nettles,  brambles,  and  long  weedy  grass. 
Nothing  else  was  visible  in  this  melancholy 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  III.  141 

enclosure  but  three  cypresses,  apparently  of 
various  ages,  the  two  smaller  planted  near 
together,  the  third,  and  by  far  the  largest, 
standing  apart  by  itself. 

Miss  Merton  was  quite  at  a  loss  what  to 
make  of  the  strange  spot ;  and,  as  Laurence 
was  feeling  in  his  pocket  for  the  key,  she 
asked  him  if  it  had  anything  to  do  with 
breeding  pheasants. 

'  Do  you  see  what  is  written  above  the 
gate  ? '  said  Laurence,  as  he  pointed  to  a  dim 
inscription  whose  letters  still  retained  a 
glimmer  of  fading  gold  ;  '  can  you  read  it  ? 

Neque  harum,  quas  colis,  arborum 
Te,  prseter  invisam  cupressum, 
Ulla  brevem  dominum  sequetur 

"  Of  all  these  trees  which  you  love  so,  the 
hated  cypress  only  shall  follow  its  master, 
and  be  faithful  to  him  in  his  narrow  house." 
But  come — let  us  go  inside,  if  you  are  not 
afraid  of  the  long  grass.' 

They  passed  through  the  gate,  which 
gave  a  low  wail  upon  its  hinges,  and  Miss 
Merton  followed  Laurence,  knee-deep  in 
grass  and  nettles,  to  the  smallest  of  the  three 
cypress-trees.  There  Laurence  paused.  At 
the  foot  of  the  tree  Miss  Merton  saw  a  flat 
slab  of  marble,  with  something  written  upon 


142  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

it ;  and  for  the  first  time  she  felt  certain  that 
she  must  be  in  a  place  of  graves. 

'  This,'  said  Laurence,  pointing  to  the 
little  cypress,  '  was  planted  only  five  years 
ago,  ten  days  before  the  poor  old  man  died 
who  now  sleeps  under  it.  This  is  my  uncle's 
grave.     Do  you  see  the  inscription  ? 

Omnis  moriar,  nuUaque  pars  mei 
Vitabit  Libitinam. 

"  I  shall  wholly  die,  and  there  is  no  part  of 
me  that  will  escape  the  Venus  of  death." 
That,  and  that  alone,  he  chose  to  have 
written  over  him.' 

Laurence  spoke  with  some  feeling,  but 
Miss  Merton  was  so  much  surprised  that  she 
hardly  knew  what  response  to  make. 

'  And  does  nobody  take  any  care  of  this 
place  ? '  at  last  she  said. 

'  No,'  said  Laurence.  *  By  his  own  last 
orders,  nobody.  But  come — you  must  look 
at  this  too.'  And  he  motioned  her  towards 
the  neighbouring  cypress. 

At  the  foot  of  this,  almost  hidden  by  the 
long  grass.  Miss  Merton  saw  something  that 
surprised  her  still  more  strangely.  It  was  the 
statue  of  a  woman  half  reclining  in  a  languid 
attitude  on  a  block  of  hewn  marble.  The 
figure  was  full  and  beautiful,  and  the  features 


BOOK  IT.     CHAPTER  TIL  143 

of  the  face  were  singularly  fine ;  but  there 
was  something  in  the  general  effect  that 
struck  one  at  the  first  moment  as  not  pleasing. 
What  slight  drapery  there  was,  was  disposed 
meretriciously  over  the  rounded  limbs  ;  on 
the  arms  were  heavy  bracelets ;  one  of  the 
hands  held  a  half-inverted  wine-cup,  and  the 
other  was  laid  negligently  on  a  heap  of  coins. 
But  what  jarred  most  upon  the  feelings  was 
the  face,  with  its  perfect  features.  For  a 
cold  sneer  was  fixed  upon  the  full  mouth  and 
the  fine  nostrils  ;  and  the  eyes,  with  a  leer  of 
petulant  sensuality,  seemed  to  be  fixed  for 
ever  upon  the  flat  neighbouring  gravestone. 

'  This  cypress,'  said  Laurence,  '  is  much 
older  than  the  other.  It  was  planted  twenty 
years  ago  ;  and  twenty  years  ago  the  original 
of  that  statue  was  laid  beneath  it.  She  was  one 
of  those  many  nameless  ladies — for,  as  you 
know,  he  completely  exiled  himself  from  society 
all  the  latter  part  of  his  life — who  from  time 
to  time  shared  his  fortunes  at  the  house  here. 
She  was,  too,  by  far  the  loveliest.  She  was  at 
the  same  time  the  hardest,  the  most  selfish, 
the  most  mercenary  as  well.  And  he  knew  it 
too.  In  spite  of  the  distraction  he  found  in  her 
companionship,  he  was  never  for  a  moment 
deceived  about  her.  At  last,  having  made 
a  fortune  out    of  him,  she   was    thinking    of 


144  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

leaving  him.  But  one  day,  suddenly,  she 
caught  a  chill  and  died.  She  died  here, 
and  here  she  was  buried.  That  statue,  as 
you  may  imagine,  is  his  design  not  hers. 
The  attitude,  the  drapery,  the  wine-cup 
held  in  one  hand,  and  the  money  in  the 
other,  are  according  to  his  express  direc- 
tion ;  and  by  his  direction,  too,  that  face,  with 
its  lovely  features,  leers  and  sneers  at  him  for 
ever,  as  he  rests  in  his  neglected  grave. 
See,  too,  there  is  the  epitaph  which  he  chose 
for  her : — 

Lusisti  satis,  edisti  satis,  atque  bibisti ; 
Tempus  abire  tibi  est. 

"You  have  wantoned  enough  with  me — you 
have  eaten  enough  of  my  substance — you  have 
drunk  enough  of  my  champagne  ;  'tis  high 
time  for  you  to  go,"  And  now,'  said  Laurence, 
'  let  us  come  to  the  third  tree,  and  you  shall 
see  what  is  overshadowed  by  it.' 

They  passed  across  the  enclosure  to  the 
largest  of  the  three  cypresses,  and  at  the  foot 
of  that  Miss  Merton  discovered  a  third  grave- 
stone, also  with  a  poetical  inscription.  '  That,' 
said  Laurence,  '  you  can  read  without  help  of 
mine.' 

INIiss  Merton  looked  ;  and  the  lines  were 
not  new  to  her  : — 


BOOK  11.     CHAPTER  III.  145 

A  slumber  did  my  spirit  seal, 

I  knew  no  mortal  fears. 
She  seemed  a  thing  that  could  not  feel 

The  touch  of  earthly  years. 

She  knows  no  motion  now,  nor  force, 

She  neither  feels  nor  sees. 
Rolled  round  in  earth's  diurnal  course 

With  rocks,  and  stones,  and  trees. 

'  Here,'  said  Laurence,  '  is  the  oldest  grave 
of  all.  ,  Its  date  is  that  of  the  tree  that  stands 
beside  it,  and  that  was  planted  forty  years  ago. 
Under  that  stone  lies  the  only  woman — ex- 
cept myself,  almost  the  only  thing — that  the 
old  man  ever  really  loved.  This  was  in  his 
young  days.  He  was  only  thirty  when  she 
died  ;  and  her  death  was  the  great  turning- 
point  of  his  life.  She  lived  with  him  for  two 
years,  in  a  little  cottage  that  stood  on  the  very 
spot  where  he  afterwards  built  the  villa.  She 
has  no  name,  you  see,  on  the  grave-stone,  and  I 
had  best  not  give  her  any.  She  was  some 
one's  wife,  but  not  his.  That  is  her  story.  I 
have  her  miniature  somewhere,  which  one  day 
I  should  like  to  show  you.  It  is  a  lovely  dark 
face,  with  liquid,  spiritual  eyes,  and  under  it 
are  written  two  lines  of  Byron's,  which  might 
have  been  composed  for  her  : — 

She  walks  in  beauty  like  the  night 
Of  cloudless  climes  and  starry  skies. 
L 


146  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

Well,  there  she  lies  now ;  and  the  old  man's 
youth  lies  buried  with  her.  It  was  her  death 
that  made  him  a  philosopher.  He  built  this 
great  place  here,  and  laid  out  these  gardens 
half  to  kill  his  grief  for  her,  and  half  to  keep 
alive  her  memory  ;  and  here,  as  you  see,  he 
buried  her.  She  gave  up  all  that  was  best  in 
her  for  the  love  of  him.  He  gave  up  all  that 
was  best  in  him  for  the  loss  of  her.' 

'  And  is  this  place  left  quite  uncared  for  ?  ' 
said  Miss  Merton,  looking  around  her. 

'  It  is  left,'  said  Laurence,  '  as  he  wished 
it  should  be.  It  was  one  of  his  most 
special  orders  that,  when  he  was  dead  and 
buried,  no  further  care  of  any  kind  should 
be  spent  on  it.  The  grass  and  weeds  were 
to  be  left  to  grow  wild  in  it,  the  rails  to  rust, 
the  portico  to  decay  and  crumble.  "  Do 
you  think,"  he  said  to  me,  "that  I  know  so 
little  of  life  as  to  flatter  myself  that  any 
single  creature  will  reoret  me  when  I  am 
gone,  or  even  waste  a  thought  upon  me  ?  I 
do  not  chose,  as  Christians  do,  to  rest  for  ever 
under  a  lie ;  for  their  tombs  are  lying  monu- 
ments that  they  are  remembered  ;  mine  shall 
be  a  true  one  that  I  am  forgotten.  Yes,"  he 
said,  "  it  makes  me  laugh  to  think  of  myself — 
me,  who  have  built  this  house  and  planted 
these  gardens  which  others  will  enjoy — rotting 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  III.  147 

in  the  midst  of  it  all.  under  thorns  and  bram- 
bles, in  a  little  dismal  wilderness.  And  then 
perhaps,  Otho,"  he  would  say  to  me,  "  some  of 
your  friends  who  will  walk  about  these  gardens 
in  a  year  or  two — Christians,  no  doubt,  with 
the  devil  knows  what  of  fine  sentiments  about 
faith  and  immortality — will  look  in  through 
the  bars  of  the  gate,  and  be  shocked  at  that 
honest  wilderness,  that  unconcealed  neglect, 
which  is  the  only  real  portion  of  those  that 
have  been."  But  during  his  last  illness  he 
softened  just  a  little,  and  admitted  that  I,  he 
did  believe,  cared  for  him,  and  might,  when  he 
was  dead,  every  now  and  then  think  of  him. 
"  And  so,"  he  said,  "  if  you  like  to  do  it,  come 
every  now  and  then,  and  scrape  the  moss 
from  my  inscription,  and  from  the  two  others. 
But  that  is  all  I  will  have  you  do — that,  and 
nothing  more.  That  will  express  all  that  it 
is  possible  that  you  should  feel  for  me."  I 
promised  him  to  do  no  more  than  that,  and 
that  I  do.  Poor  old  man  ! '  Laurence  went 
on  meditatively,  as  they  passed  out  of  the 
gates,  and  were  again  in  the  bright  trim  gar- 
den. '  He  thought  that  he  belonged  to  times 
before  his  own  ;  but  I  think  that  in  reality 
he  belonged  to  times  after  them.  If  he  was 
Roman  at  all,  as  he  always  fancied  himself,  he 
was  Roman  only  in  that  sombre  ennui  that 
L  2 


148  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

through  all  his  later  years  oppressed  him  ;  and 
which  seems  to  me  to  be  now  settling  down 
upon  the  world — an  ennui  that  always  kept 
him  seeking  for  pleasures,  and  that  turned  the 
pleasures  into  ashes  as  soon  as  he  possessed 
them.  His  pleasures  were  high  and  low  ;  but 
the  higher  made  him  despise  the  lower  ;  and 
the  lower  he  sought  simply  that  he  might  drown 
the  higher.  Two  things  only  during  his  last 
years  never  palled  upon  him  :  one  was,  saying 
a  sharp  thing  neatly  ;  the  other,  detecting 
some  new  weakness  in  human  nature.  In  this 
he  seemed  really  to  revel.  On  the  littlenesses 
and  the  pretences  of  men,  especially  when 
they  turned  out  failures,  he  seemed  to  look 
with  a  passionate  contemptuous  fondness, 
like  a  wicked  prince  on  a  peasant-girl.  See 
— here  was  his  summer  study — this  stone 
pavilion.  Let  us  go  in  for  a  moment,  and  I 
will  show  it  to  you.' 

They  were  in  front  of  a  small  quasi-classi- 
cal building  of  white  marble,  embowered  be- 
hind in  arbutus  and  in  myrtles,  and  command- 
ing from  its  large  windows  a  full  view  of  the 
sea.  Laurence  unlocked  the  door,  and  he  and 
Miss  Merton  entered. 

Inside  there  was  a  faint  musty  smell,  and 
a  general  sense  that  the  place  had  been  long 
disused.     The  walls  were  completely  lined 


BOOK  11.     CHAPTER  III. 


149 


with  books  in  splendid  bindings,  whose  gilded 
backs  glimmered  temptingly  through  the 
network  of  the  bookcase  doors.  In  the  centre 
stood  a  table,  covered  with  a  cloth  of  faded 
crimson  velvet ;  nothing  on  it  but  a  tarnished 
ormolu  inkstand,  in  the  shape  of  a  Roman 
temple,  across  the  columns  of  which  spiders 
had  woven  dusty  webs.  Placed  stiffly  before 
the  table  stood  a  gilded  arm-chair,  with 
cushions  of  crimson  damask,  and  under  it  a 
foot-stool  to  match,  which  had  ^een  worn 
quite  bare  by  the  old  philosopher's  feet. 

'  Here,'  said  Laurence,  '  he  would  sit  day 
after  day  amongst  his  books,  drawing,  or 
reading,  or  writing,  or  looking  out  at  his 
flowers  or  at  the  sea.  Look  !  these  two  folios, 
bound  in  red  morocco,  are  a  collection  of  his 
verses,  letters,  essays  and  so  on,  that  he  had 
had  privately  printed.  They  are  not  all,  I'm 
afraid,  quite  fit  to  read.  But  this  first  volume 
is  all  right.  I  should  like  to  take  it  out  and 
show  it  to  you  by-and-by.  But  come — I 
have  nothing  more  to  exhibit  now.  We  had 
better  join  the  others.  They  will  not  be  far  off,' 
he  said,  as  they  left  the  pavilion  ;  '  indeed,  I 
think  I  can  hear  them  talking.' 

In  another  moment  they  had  passed 
through  an  arch  of  evergreens,  and  found 
themselves  on  the  spot  where  nearly  all  the 


I50  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

rest  of  the  party  had  already  assembled,  dis- 
posed in  an  easy  group  upon  the  grass.  The 
place  was  an  amphitheatre  of  velvet  turf,  set 
round  with  laurels  and  all  kinds  of  shrubs ; 
in  the  arena  of  which — if  one  may  so  speak — 
a  little  fountain  splashed  cool  and  restless  in 
a  porphyry  basin.  Overhead  the  blue  sum- 
mer sky  was  screened  by  the  whispering 
shade  of  tall  trees  ;  and  above  the  dark  laurel- 
leaves  the  fresh  sea  was  seen  in  the  distance, 
an  azure  haze  full  of  sparklings.  The  whole 
scene,  as  Miss  Merton  and  Laurence,  with 
his  gorgeous  folio  under  his  arm,  came  upon 
it,  was  curiously  picturesque.  The  various 
dresses  made  against  the  green  turf  a  soft 
medley  of  colours.  The  ladies  were  in  white 
and  black  and  pale  yellow,  green  and  crimson 
and  dove-colour.  All  the  men,  except  Mr. 
Luke,  were  in  shooting  coats ;  and  Mr. 
Saunders,  who  wore  knickerbockers,  had  even 
pink  stockings.  And  here,  as  the  lights  and 
shades  flickered  over  them,  and  the  gentle  air 
breathed  upon  them,  they  seemed  altogether 
like  a  party  from  which  an  imaginative  on- 
looker might  have  expected  a  new  Decameron. 
Already,  under  Lady  Grace's  vigorous 
guidance,  a  certain  amount  of  talk  had  begun 
apropos  of  the  new  Republic ;  all  the  ladies, 
with  the  exception  of  Mrs.  Sinclair,  having 


BOOK  II.     CHAPTER  III  151 

fallen  to  discussing  the  true  position  of  women, 
or  rather  of  woman,  and  their  opinions  on  this 
point  being  a  little  various.  But  besides  this, 
the  post  had  arrived ;  and  that  too  had 
created  some  excitement.  Lady  Ambrose  in 
particular  had  become  delightfully  radiant,  on 
receiving  a  large  envelope  that  was  stiff  as 
she  handled  it ;  and  which  she  saw  contained, 
as  she  just  peeped  into  it,  a  card,  on  the  top  of 
which  was  printed,  '  To  have  the  honour  to 
meet — .'  She  had,  too,  just  extracted  from 
Lord  Allen  a  promise  to  come  and  stay  with 
her,  next  autumn,  in  the  country ;  and  her 
measure  of  good  spirits  was  quite  full. 

'  Now,  Mr.  Laurence,'  she  exclaimed, 
dangling  her  hat  in  her  hand,  '  do  come  and 
put  a  stop  to  this.  You  see  what  a  woman's 
parliament  would  be  if  we  ever  have  one, 
which  my  husband  says  is  not  at  all  im- 
possible. Here  is  one  of  us  who  thinks  that 
everything  will  go  well  if  women  can  only 
learn  to  paint  flowers  on  white  dessert  plates, 
and  get  fifteen  shillings  apiece  for  them.' 

'  And  I,'  said  Lady  Grace,  smiling  good- 
naturedly,  '  was  just  saying  that  they  all 
ought  to  be  taught  logic' 

'  Perfectly  true,'  exclaimed  Mr.  Saunders, 
puttingup  his  spectacles  to  see  who  had  spoken. 

'And  Miss  Merton,'  said  Lady  Ambrose 


152  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  thinks  that  we  should  all  be  taught  to  walk 
the  hospitals,  or  be  sick-nurses.' 

*  I  should  not  so  much  mind  that,'  said 
Mrs.  Sinclair,  '  in  war  time,  if  one  had  anyone 
fighting  in  whose  life  one  really  took  an 
interest.  I  once  thought,  Mr.  Leslie,  that 
that  might  be  my  mission,  perhaps.' 

'  But,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  '  how  arc  we 
to  build  a  castle  in  the  air  together,  if  we  are 
all  at  cross  purposes  like  this  ? ' 

There  did  indeed  seem  little  prospect  of 
their  getting  to  work  at  all  ;  until  Leslie  ex- 
claimed at  last  that  he  thought  he  had  found 
a  way. 

'  See,'  said  Mrs.  Sinclair,  '  I  told  you  a 
little  while  ago  you  would  be  wanted  to  talk 
cleverly.  And  now,  Mr.  Leslie,  don't  you 
think  you  would  be  more  comfortable  if  you 
sat  a  little  farther  oft"  ?  or  Lady  Grace,  of 
whom  I  am  already  afraid,  will  begin  to  think 
we're  flirting.' 

'  Well,'  said  Leslie,  '  in  spite  of  all  our 
differences,  I  think  I  see  a  way  in  which  we 
shall  all  be  able  to  set  to  work  together.  We 
want  to  imagine  a  state  that  shall  be  as  nearly 
perfect  as  we  can  make  it.  Well  and  good. 
Now,  we  shall  all  admit,  I  suppose,  that  in  a 
perfect  state  all  the  parts  will  be  perfect,  and 
each    part    will    imply    and    involve    all    the 


BOOK  11.     CHAPTER  III.  153 

Others.  Given  one  bone,  we  shall  be  able  to 
construct  the  entire  animal.  Let  us  then 
take  one  part,  and  imagine  that  first.  Let  us 
take  the  highest  class  in  our  state,  and  see 
what  we  think  that  ought  to  be,  looking  on  it 
in  the  first  place  not  as  a  corporate  body  of 
superiors,  but  as  an  assembly  of  equals.  Let 
us,  I  mean,  to  put  it  in  other  words,  begin 
with  seeing  what  we  really  wish  society  to  be 
— what  we  really  think  that  the  highest  and 
most  refined  life  consists  in,  that  is  possible 
for  the  most  favoured  classes  ;  and  then  let 
us  see  afterwards  what  is  implied  in  this.' 

Leslie's  proposal  was  welcomed  eagerly 
by  everyone. 

'Well,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  'and  so  we 
are  each  of  us  to  say,  are  we,  what  we  think 
is  the  essence  of  good  society  ?  Come  then, 
who  knows  ? ' 

'  Art,'  murmured  Mr.  Rose. 

'  Reason,'  said  Mr.  Saunders. 

'  Unworldliness,  based  on  knowledge  of 
the  world,'  said  Miss  Merton. 

'  Wait  a  moment,'  said  Laurence,  '  we  are 
going  too  fast.  This  is  not  what  Mr.  Leslie 
means.' 

'  No,  no,'  said  Mr.  Saunders.  '  Let  us 
get  rid  of  what  is  evil  before  we  introduce 
what  is  good.      I  should  begin  by  getting  rid 


154  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

of  every  belief  that  is  not  based  upon  reason, 
and  every  sentiment  whose  existence  cannot 
be  accounted  for.' 

'  Here  we  are,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  *  all 
over  the  place.  Now  if  I  might  be  allowed 
to  say  what  I  thought  was  the  essence  of 
good  society,  I  should  say  that  a  great  part  of 
it,  at  least,  was  the  absence  of  dull  and  vulgar 
people.' 

'  Excellent ! '  exclaimed  Mr.  Luke,  '  and  a 
capital  exclusion  with  which  to  begin  our  new 
Republic' 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  I.  155 


BOOK  III. 
CHAPTER    I. 

iES,'  said  Mr.  Luke  still  more 
solemnly,  '  if  we  only  follow  this 
out — this  idea  of  the  exclusion 
from  our  society  of  all  vulgar  and 
extraneous  elements,  we  shall  find  we  have  done 
a  great  deal  more  than  we  may  at  first  think. 
We  shall  have  at  once  a  free,  and  liberal,  and 
untainted  social  and  intellectual  atmosphere,  in 
which  our  thoughts,  and  feelings,  and  refine- 
ments, and  ways  of  living,  may  develop  them- 
selves to  the  utmost,  unimpeded.  Lady 
Ambrose  has  certainly  begun  with  hitting  the 
right  nail  on  the  head.' 

Could  Lady  Ambrose  have  been  told, 
when  she  left  London  the  afternoon  before, 
that  in  another  twenty-four  hours  she  would 
be  taking  the  lead  in  the  construction  of  a 
Utopia,  or  ideal  state  of  society,  suggested 
by  the  writings  of  a  Greek  philosopher,  she 
would  have  been  utterly  at  a  loss  to  know 


I $6  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

what  the  prophecy  meant ;  and  had  she 
known  what  it  meant,  she  would  certainly  not 
have  believed  it.  Indeed,  as  it  was,  she  could 
hardly  imagine  that  Mr.  Luke  was  serious, 
and  that  he  was  not  laughing  at  her ;  so  she 
said  quickly  and  in  a  tone  of  self-defence, 

'  Of  course  I  know  that  there  must  be 
something  more  than  the  mere  exclusion  of 
vulgar  people,  Mr.  Luke.  We  must  have 
religion,  and  all  that,  and ' 

'Ah!'  exclaimed  Mr.  Luke,  interrupting 
her  with  a  grand  wave  of  the  hand  ;  '  my  dear 
Lady  Ambrose,  let  us  leave  all  that  till  by- 
and-by.  Let  us  be  content  to  begin  with 
simpler  matters  first' 

*  Let  us  begin  with  the  flowers  of  life,' 
said  Leslie,  '  and  when  we  have  chosen  these, 
let  us  trace  them  back  to  their  roots,' 

'  I  quite  think,'  said  Miss  Merton,  *  that  in 
a  really  good  society — one  that  was  perfectly 
good  even  in  the  superficial  sense  of  the 
word — we  should  find,  if  we  only  had  eyes 
enough,  religion  lurking  somewhere,  and 
everything  else  we  want.' 

'  And  so  that's  jj'^?/r  view,  my  dear,  is  it  ?' 
said  Lady  Ambrose  *  Oh,  then,  I  suppose 
since  you,  a  Roman  Catholic,  think  so,  I  may 
also.' 

*  Surely,  too,'  said  Miss  Merton,  '  we  must 


BOOK  in.     CHAPTER  I.  157 

all  know  that  nothing  can  be  so  bad,  either 
for  the  pushers  or  the  pushed,  as  the  struggle 
of  people  to  get  into  what  they  think  is  good 
society,  not  in  the  least  because  they  care  to 
be  there,  but  merely  because  they  care  to  be 
known  to  be  there.' 

Lady  Ambrose,  who  perhaps  felt  uncon- 
sciously some  small  pricks  of  conscience  here, 
again  looked  doubtful,  and  said,  '  Still,  if  we 
really  want  to  make  a  perfect  state,  this  does 
not  seem  a  very  serious  thing  to  begin  with.' 

'  Listen,'  exclaimed  Laurence ;  '  let  me 
read  you  something  I  have  here — something 
of  my  uncle's,  which  I  have  just  thought 
of  It  is  a  short  adaptation  of  Aristotle's 
Ethics! 

Lady  Ambrose  started.  Hearing  two 
words,  the  one  as  long  as  Aristotle,  and  the 
other  as  unfamiliar  as  Ethics,  she  be^an  to 
think  that  she  had  made  the  conversation 
serious  with  a  vengeance.  Indeed,  the  whole 
party,  as  well  as  herself,  showed  some  signs 
of  surprise. 

'  It  is  very  short,'  said  Laurence, '  and  I  will 
only  read  a  page  or  two.  It  is  called  "A  system 
of  Ethics,  adapted  from  Aristotle,  For  the  use 
of  the  English  Nation."  It  was  suggested  to 
him — '  (and  this  bewildered  Lady  Ambrose 
still  more,  though  at  the  same  time   it  rave 


158  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

her  some  gleam  of  hope),  *by  a  very  rich  vulgar 
family,  who  bought  a  place  near  here,  and 
who  much  annoyed  and  amazed  him  by  the 
great  court  they  paid  to  him.  This  is  the 
first  chapter ;  it  treats  of  "  The  Summum 
Bonum,  or  The  Moj^al  End  of  Action!' 
Listen — 

'  Ethics  being  the  art  and  science  of  himian 
action,  as  directed  towards  the  chief  good  of 
life — that  highest  and  final  end,  to  which,  if 
we  think  a  little,  we  shall  see  all  other  ends  are 
suboj^dinate ;  it  is  evident  that  oitr  first  task 
must  be,  as  our  master  Aristotle  well  says,  to 
fori7i  a  clear  conception  of  what  this  e7id,  the 
chief  good,  is. 

Now  on  this  point  Aristotle  zuould  seem 
to  e7n'.  For  he,  following  the  commo7i 
opinion  of  men,  affirms  the  chief  good  to  be 
happiness,  holding  the  only  question  to  be,  in 
what  does  t7^ue  happiness  lie  ?  And  if  he 
had  been  philosophising  for  savages,  he  ivotild 
indeed  have  been  iji  the  right.  But  because 
savages  and  men  in  a  state  of  nattire  have  all 
one  end  of  action,  which  is  happiness,  it  by  no 
means  foil ozvs  that  the  sct??ze  is  true  of  civilised 
nations,  aifd  that  these  may  not  have  ends  that 
are  far  higher.  It  is  indeed  evident  that  they 
have.  And  not  this  only,  but  that  of  suck 
ends  there  is  a  very  great  variety.     To  describe 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  I.  159 

and  mmiber  these  with  anything  like  absoltUe 
accuracy  is  neither  reqtdred  nor  admitted  by 
the  nature  of  the  subject.     Btit  zve  shall  be 
sufficiently  near  the  trtith  if  zve  say  that  the^'e 
is  a  separate  and  characteristic  chief  good  for _ 
each  civilised  nation — {(juot  gentcs  tot  sunima 
Bond) — and  that  it  is  by  this  in  each  case  that 
the    national    character    is    determined.      A 
glance  at  the  continent  of  Etirope  will  at  once 
illustrate  this,  ajid  suggest  examples  to  us  of 
these  national  chief  goods.      We  shall  see  the 
Germans,    for    instance,    follozving  zvhat   is 
called  Thoiight  to  its  inmost  recesses,  the  French 
zvhat  is  called  Life.    We  shall  find  accordingly 
that    the    chief  good  of  the  former   nation, 
zvhich   is  perhaps   the  highest  of  all,  is   the 
knozvledge  of  the  2tnknowable ;  whilst  that  of 
the  latter,  which  is  next  to  it  in  dignity,  is  the 
practice   of  the   unmentionable.     And  so   on 
with  all  the  other  nations  ;  each  zvill  be  fowid 
to  have  its  separate  chief  good ;  and  none  of 
these  to  have  the  least  connection  zvith  happiness. 
For    us,    hozvever,    zvho    are    English,    and 
writing  for  English  readers,  it  zvill  be  enough 
to   concern    ourselves   simply   zvith   the   chief 
good  of  the  English. 

'  We  shall  discover  this,  in  the  same  way 
as  we  did  that  of  the  French  and  Germans,  in 
an  examination  of  our  own  special  national 


i6o  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

characteristic.  First,  kozuever,  we  nmst  be 
clear  zvhat  this  characteristic  is  ;  and  here  it 
will  be  well  to  take  otir  neighboiCrs  opinions  of 
us  as  well  as  our  ozun.  If  we  inquire  then  in 
what  light  zve  present  ourselves  to  the  otlier 
Etiropean  nations,  zve  shall  find  that  jnst  as 
the  Germans  are  knozvn  mainly  as  a  profoimd 
nation,  and  the  French  as  a  pruriejit  nation,  so 
are  zve,  in  like  manner,  nozv  hiown  as  a  vulgar 
nation.  And  as  this  view  of  us  exactly  tallies 
with  our  ozvn,  it  appears  evident  that  the 
special  national  characteristic  of  the  English 
is  vulgarity,  and  that  the  chief  good  of  the 
English  is  the  filial  end  that  is  aimed  at  by 
the  English  vulgar  classes. 

'  This  zve  affirm  to  be  social  distinction,  to 
their  admiration  and  pursuit  of  zvhich  is  due 
that  cardinal  moral  quality  zvhich  they  call 
worldliness  in  tJiemselves,  ajid  snobbishness  in 
their  friends  and  enemies.  And  if  any  object 
that  to  a  gi'cat  part  of  the  nation  social  dis- 
tinction in  its  true  sense  is  a  thing  unknozvn, 
and  that  to  another  part  it  is  a  thing  that 
comes  without  being  struggled  for,  and  so  in 
neither  case  can  be  the  end  of  moral  action, 
we  shall  anszver  them  that  to  object  this,  is 
much  the  same  as  to  argue  that  a  peach-t7'ee 
does  not  bear  peaches  because  none  are  to  be 
seen  grozving  out  of  the  roots  ;  or  that  there  is 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  I.  i6i 

no  meaning  in  the  Athanctsian  Creed  because 
none  is  attached  to  it  by  the  only  people  who  tcse 
it ;  or  that  there  is  no  meaning  i7i  the  dogma  of 
the  Popes  infallibility  because  its  only  possible 
meaning  is  repudiated  by  all  those  who  defend 
it.  For  nothing  zmll  be  found  tinless  ive  seek 
it  in  its  right  place.  And  for  the  ethics  of  a 
nation  ive  -imist  look  only  in  that  part  of  the 
nation  which  is  their  p7^oper  sphere  ;  and  that 
part  is,  as  we  have  already  shoiun,  the  vulgar 
part.  And  should  any  still  imagine  that  if 
we  thus  limit  the  scope  of  our  observation,  we 
shall  not  be  able  to  treat  the  subject  exhatistively, 
we  shall  ^'■emind  him  that  the  vulgar  classes, 
though  not  yet  co-extensive  with  the  nation,  are 
still  rapidly  becoming  so,  vulgarity  ascending 
and  descending  with  equal  certainty  ;  since  on 
the  one  hand  it  ruins  all  society  into  zuhich  it 
contrives  to  enter ;  whilst  it  thrives  itself  on 
the  other  hand,  on  all  society  that  contrives  to 
enter  into  it.  To  it  therefore  our  zvhole  study 
may  be  confined.  Nor  lastly  [for  it  is  zuell  to 
anticipate  every  possible  objection),  is  there  any 
need  that  even  thus  we  should  study  those 
classes  that  naturally  possess  social  distinction, 
that  zve  may  so  learn  in  zahat  its  real  essence 
consists ;  since,  if  zve  do  but  observe  facts,  zee 
shall  see  that  ignorance  of  the  zvhole  inner 
nature  of  good  society  is  the  chief  characteidstic 

M 


1 62  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

of  tJwse  ivJio  luitJi  most  single-heartedness 
direct  their  lives  towards  getting  into  it.  It 
will  be  enough  then,  without  any  further  ex- 
planation, to  lay  it  doivn  that  social  distinctioji 
is  the  chief  good,  and  the  end  of  all  nioi^al 
action  ;  nor  can  the  Aristotelians  say  that  this 
is  in  reality  a  mediate  end,  and  sought  for 
only  because  it  leads  to  happiness  ;  since  so  far 
are  men  frojit  seeking  social  distinction  for  the 
sake  of  happiness,  that  they  are  perpetually 
re7iouncing  happiness  for  the  sake  of  social 
distinction! 

*  Capital,  Mr.  Laurence  ! '  exclaimed  Lady 
Ambrose,  breaking  into  a  low  silvery  laugh, 
as  soon  as  Laurence  had  ended.  '  And  how 
true  that  is  about  those  people  who  really  ruin 
the  society  into  which  they  contrive  to  push 
themselves ! ' 

Lord  Allen,  who  caught  Miss  Merton's 
eye  at  this  moment,  gave  a  very  faint  smile. 

'  So  you  see,'  said  Laurence,  '  that  you 
were  quite  right.  Lady  Ambrose,  by  in- 
stinctively beginning  with  exclusion,' 

'  Still,'  said  Allen,  '  I'm  afraid  that  all  this 
is  rather  selfish.  These  people  who  want  to 
to  be  so  smart,  are,  I  dare  say,  not  much  the 
worse  because  of  it.  Indeed,  myself,  I  rather 
like  a  good  snob  now  and  then.' 

*  Well,'  said  Laurence,  '  let  me  read  a  few 


BOOK  in.     CHAPTER  /.  163 

more  paragraphs,  and  you  will  see.  '  Stick 
.  being  the  end',  he  goes  on,  ' of  all  moral 
action,  virtue  or  morality  is  that  state  of 
mind  which  desires  this  end ;  and  virtuous  or 
moral  acts  are  those  zvhich  help  us  on  towards 
it,  provided  only  that  they  are  done  zvith 
purpose.  For  acts  done  not  zvith  purpose,  but 
by  chance,  are  not  to  be  held  moral.  Noiv  the 
nature  of  purpose  is  zvell  explained  by  Aristotle, 
when  he  says  that  its  object  is  all  such  volun- 
tary action  as  is  the  result  of  deliberation. 
And  what  then  is  the  object  of  deliberation  ? 
Let  us  consider  that :  for  men,  it  is  evident,  do 
not  deliberate  about  all  matters  alike  ;  since  in 
addition  to  their  continually  not  delibeimting  in 
cases  when  they  ought,  there  are  many  matters 
about  which  deliberation  is  out  of  the  question. 
Thus  no  one  deliberates  about  zvhat  is  i7i  its 
nature  inimiLtable,  as  how  to  alter  vulgat^ity  of 
a  peoples  member  of  Parliament ;  7tor  about 
necessary  things,  as  how  to  alleviate  the  misery 
of  the  starving  poor ;  nor  about  things  of 
chance,  as  how  to  prevent  the  dissemination  of 
cholera  ;  nor^  again,  about  retnote  things  which 
do  not  concern  7ts,  as,  to  7ise  a  former  instance, 
hozv  to  alleviate  the  misery  of  the  starving 
poor;  nor  does  anyone  deliberate  abotit  i77t- 
possible  things,  as  how  to  check  the  poisonous 
adtdteration  of  food  ;  nor  about  things  that  are 

M  2 


i64  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

past  and  lost,  as  hoiv  to  do  anything  for  the 
glo7y  of  England;  nor,  lastly,  do  we  deliberate 
abont  things  we  do  not  care  about,  as  hoiv  to 
get  that  lost  glory  back  again.  Deliberation^ 
then,  only  takes  place  about  such  matters  as 
02ir  own  agency  can  effect,  a7id  ivhich  we  wish 
it  should  effect.  Virtue,  therefore,  being  thus 
based  on  deliberation,  is  manifestly  not  one  of 
those  things  that  come  to  21s  by  nature  whether 
we  will  or  no  ;  but  it  is  acqtiired  by  habit. 
The  genus  of  7noral  virtue  is  a  habit.  But 
zuhat  special  sort  of  habit  f  and  how  does  it 
differ  from  all  other  habits  ?  Let  us  consider 
this. 

'  We  must  remember,  first,  that  it  is  the 
office  of  every  virtue  to  perfect  that  of  which  it 
iTlhe  virtue.  Thus  it  is  the  virtue  of  a 
modern  London  hotise  to  be  as  badly  built  as 
possible  and  not  be  seen  to  be  so ;  it  is  the 
virtue  of  ati  insured  ship  not  to  appear  unsea- 
worthy  before  she  does  so  to  the  creiv  as  she  is 
fotmdering ]  and  it  is  the  virtue  of  butchers 
meat,  groceries  and  so  forth,  not  to  appear  un- 
fit for  hu7nan  consumption.  In  the  same  way 
moral  virtue,  or  the  virtue  of  a  7nan,  is  that 
which  makes  hi?n  appear  to  be  one  thing  to  the 
vjoidd,  whilst  in  reality  he  is  another.  Such 
1  being  the  case,  it  is  plain  that  in  trying  to  be 
virtuous,  we  may,  as  in  most  other  things,  do 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  /.  165 

too  much,  or  too  littte  ;  and  what  is  right  will 
be  a  mean  lying  betivcen  these  two  extremes. 
Now  of  means  the7'e  are  two  kinds,  the  absolute 
and  the  relative,  either  of  which  we  can  find 
in  anything  that  is  contijiuous  ;  the  former,  as 
when  we  take  the  bisecting  point  in  a  straight 
line,  which  is  for  all  men  one  and  the  same ; 
the  latter,  as  zvhen  we  take  the  mean  point  or 
thing  with  reference  to  ourselves,  in  which  case 
it  will  differ  with  ottr  different  reqinre77ients. 
Thus,  if  three  be  too  S7nall  a  mwiber,  and 
seventy-five  too  great,  simply  as  a7i  aiHthmetical 
problem,  we  take  thirty-nine  to  be  the  mean, 
which  exceeds  three  by  as  much  as  it  is  exceeded 
by  seventy-five ;  but  with  reference  to  ourselves 
we  cannot  so  decide.  For  thirty -nine  articles  of 
religio7i  may  be  too  few  for  the  present  A  rch- 
bishop  of  Westminster,  and  three  may  be  too 
many  for  the  Dealt.  Or  again  betivcen  1 00/. 
and  20/.,  the  mean  with  regard  to  the  matter 
itself  would  be  60/.,  but  with  regard  to  our- 
selves, not  so.  For  60/.  would  be  too  little  to 
offer  to  a  cook,  and  too  much  to  offer  to  a 
curate.  So  in  like  maimer  that  equality  which 
constitutes  moral  virtue  is  not  the  absolute,  but 
the  relative  mean.  Moral  virttie,  then,  we 
shall  define  to  be  a  certain  state,  or  habit  of 
purpose,  conforming  in  actioii  to  the  relative 
mean,  and  adjusted  to  that  mean  as  the  worldly 


1 66  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

or  snobbish  man  would  adjitst  it.  At  this 
point  we  shall  pause  a  moment  to  make  a  very 
slight  change  in  the  accepted  terminology  of  the 
subject.  We  have  hitherto  spoke7i  of  the  virtue 
of  the  vulgar  classes  as  being  a  mean.  We 
consider,  hoivever,  that  our  language  zvill  be 
less  ambiguous,  if  we  take  another  form  of  the 
same  zuord,  and  agree  to  call  it  a  meanness. 
Moral  virtue,  then,  is  a  meanness  lying  between 
two  vices,  its  extremes ;  the  one  vice  being  that 
of  excess,  the  other  that  of  defect.  Thus  it  is 
possible  for  a  habit  of  mind  to  be  so  unrestrai?ied 
and  vehement,  that  the  acts  it  produces  at  once 
betray  their  motives  and  obtrtide  them  on  the 
observer  ;  it  is  possible  for  it,  also,  on  the  other 
hand,  to  be  so  weak  and  nerveless  as  never  to 
prodtice  any  acts  at  all.  For  instance,  the 
habit  of  thozight  in  a  clergyman  may  be  so 
strojig  ajid  imrestrained  as  to  lead  him  to  speak 
his  zvhole  conclusions  out,  and  so  get  deprived  of 
his  living ;  or  on  the  other  hand  it  may  be  so 
zveak  and  ttndeveloped,  that  he  comes  to  no  con- 
clusions at  all,  and  so  dies  in  a  curacy ;  the 
meanness  between  these  two  extremes  being 
what  is  called  vagueness,  or  the  absence  of  any 
defined  opinions,  zvhich  is  a  great  merit,  and 
leads,  in  the  Established  Church,  to  high  pre- 
ferment. So  also  with  habits  of  action,  the 
general  name  given  to  the   true  meanness  is 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  I.  167 

worldliness,  zukereof  the  excess  is  snobbishness, 
and  the  defect  independence :  worldliness 
being  171  its  essence  the  former  of  these,  and  in 
its  aspect  the  latter.  Whence  it  follows  that 
we  may  yet  ftirther  generally  define  the  moral 
meanness,  as  that  zvhich  is  inwardly  one  ex- 
treme, and  which  is  oiitwardly  the  other.' 

'  Now,'  said  Laurence,  '  though  I  don't 
suppose  the  writer  of  this  really  cared  two 
straws  whether  the  majority  of  people  were 
mean  and  vulgar  or  no,  there  is  a  great  deal 
of  truth  in  what  he  says  :  and  I  think  in  our 
ideally  good  society  one  of  the  first  things  we 
want  is  that  it  shall  be  unmixed  and  genuine  ; 
I  mean,  all  its  members  must  be  of  it,  as  well 
as  in  it.  They  must  give  it  its  prestige.  We 
must  have  none  that  merely  get  their  pres- 
tige from  it' 

'  Well,'  said  Allen,  '  no  doubt  this  exclusion 
is  better,  if  it  could  be  only  managed.' 

'  Don't  let  us  think  yet,'  said  Laurence, 
'  about  how  to  manage  it.  Let  us  see  what  we 
want  first,  and  see  what  it  costs  afterwards.' 

'  I  certainly  believe,'  said  Miss  Merton, 
'  that  what  I  consider  the  extremely  bad 
manners  of  a  great  many  very  fine  ladies 
would  all  go,  if  a  stop  were  put  to  this 
jostling  and  scrambling  that  goes  on  about 
them,  as  Mr.  Laurence  proposes.'  U- 


1 68  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

*  See,'  said  Laurence,  '  here  is  one  good 
fruit  of  exclusion  at  once — the  redemption  of 
our  manners  ;  and  a  most  important  fruit  too, 
I  think ;  for  I  hope  we  all  start  with  the  un- 
derstanding that  our  society,  ideally  good  as 
it  is,  is  above  none  of  those  outward  graces 
and  refinements  of  behaviour  and  ways  of 
living  that  give  us  such  pleasure  now,  when 
we  find  them.' 

'  And  manner  too,  Mr.    Laurence,'  broke 

in  Lady  Ambrose,  '  as  well  as  manners 

Think  what  a   charm    there    is    in    a   really 
charming-  manner.' 

*  There  is  indeed,'  exclaimed  Mr.  Stockton. 

*  The  dear  Duchess  of  for   instance — 

why,  there's  a  fascination  even  in  the  way  in 
which  she  says  good  morning.' 

'  Ah  yes,'  said  Lady  Ambrose.  '  Now, 
there's  what  I  call  a  really  perfect  manner 
for  you.' 

'  Very  well,'  said  Laurence,  '  and  whatever 
is  a  really  perfect  manner,  in  our  ideal  society 
we  must  all  have  it.' 

'  I  must  confess,'  said  Allen,  '  that  I  get 
very  sick  sometimes  of  our  conventional 
society  manners ;  and  I  often  long  to  have 
a  good  genuine  savage  to  talk  to.' 

*  That,'  said  Laurence,  '  is  because  of  all 
the  social  shams  that  we  have  just  agreed  to 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  I.  169 

get  rid  of.  And  to  call  the  manner  of  society 
conventional,  conveys  no  greater  blame 
than  if  you  were  to  call  language  con- 
ventional. For  manner  is  but  a  second 
language,  of  which  the  best  society  speaks  the 
purest  dialect — the  Attic,  in  fact.  And  as 
with  language,  so  with  manner,  the  more 
uniformity  there  is  in  it  in  some  ways,  the 
nicer  shades  of  individuality  shall  we  be  able 
to  express  by  it  in  others.' 

'  Well,'  said  Allen,  shortly,  '  perhaps  it  is 
so.     You  are  very  likely  right.' 

'  And  in  manner,'  said  Laurence,  *  I  in- 
clude tone  too — that  special  and  indescribable 
way  of  looking  at  things,  and  speaking  of 
things,  which  characterises  good  society,  and 
distinguishes  it  from  the  rest  of  the  world  so 
completely,  and  yet  by  marks  so  subtle  that 
they  would  utterly  escape  the  notice  of  those 
who  don't  know  their  meaning — that  little 
extra  stroke  of  polishing  that  brings  to  light 
such  countless  new  delicate  veins  in  the 
marble  of  life — the  little  extra  stroke  of  the 
brush  that  puts  a  new  refinement,  and  self- 
possession,  into  the  face.  As  Browning  says 
of  a  very  different  subject — 

Oh,  the  little  more,  and  how  much  it  is, 
And  the  little  less,  and  what  worlds  away. 


I70  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

And  this  is  something  quite  independent  of 
any  special  abihty  or  special  quality  on  the 
part  of  the  individual  people  themselves  ; 
though  of  course  the  more  gifted  and  culti- 
vated they  are,  the  greater  will  its  charm 
be.' 

'  Yes,'  said  Miss  Merton  thoughtfully, 
and  half  to  herself,  '  I  think  all  that  is  quite 
true.' 

'  Of  course,'  said  Laurence,  *  I  know  that 
tone  alone  can  only  make  society  good  in  a 
very  narrow  sense  of  the  word.  I  merely 
mean  that  no  amount  of  other  qualities  can 
make  it  really  good,  without  tone.' 

'  I  don't  in  the  least  object,'  said  Allen, 
'  to  the  marble  being  polished  ;  but  what  I 
want  first  to  be  sure  of  is,  that  it  is  worth 
polishing.' 

'  Quite  so,'  said  Laurence.  '  What  we 
must  now  consider  is,  what  are  all  those 
special  qualities  and  accomplishments,  which 
will  make  a  really  perfect  society  the  best 
among  the  best — such  things  as  wit,  know- 
ledge, experience,  humour,  and  so  on — the 
veins,  in  fact,  in  the  marble,  that  can  be 
brought  out  by  the  polish.' 

'  Ah,  yes,  my  dear  Laurence,'  began  Mr. 
Luke,  '  this  is  the  great  thing  that  we  shall 
have  to  decide  about ;    and   it  is  this  very 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  I.  171 

thing  that  I  am  always  telHng  the  world 
IS 

But  he  was  interrupted  by  the  advent 
of  Mr.  Herbert,  who,  with  the  exception  of 
Mr.  Storks  and  Dr.  Jenkinson,  was  the  only 
member  of  the  party  not  already  there.  Mr. 
Herbert's  whole  aspect  surprised  everyone. 
At  luncheon,  as  all  remembered,  he  had  been 
melancholy  and  desponding  ;  but  his  face 
now  wore  a  bright  sm^ile,  and  there  was 
something  that  was  almost  gaiety  in  his 
elastic  step.  No  one,  however,  ventured 
to  ask  him  the  reason  of  this  pleasing 
change  ;  but  as  he  held  an  open  newspaper 
in  his  hand,  which  he  had  apparently  just 
received,  it  occurred  to  most  that  he  must 
have  seen  in  it  '  something  to  his  advan- 
tage.' 

'  Well,'  he  exclaimed  to  Laurence,  in  a 
manner  quite  in  keeping  with  his  look,  '  and 
tell  me  now  how  are  you  getting  on  with  your 
new  Republic  }  You  ought  to  make  a  very 
beautiful  thing  out  of  it — all  of  you  together, 
with  so  many  charming  ladies.' 

'  Do  you  think  so  ? '  said  Laurence,  in 
great  surprise  at  this  cheerful  view  of  things. 

'  Yes,'  answered  Mr.  Herbert,  slowly  and 
with  decision.  '  Ladies  I  always  think,  so 
long   as   they   are    good   and    honest,    have 


172  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

beautiful    imaginations.     And    now,    let   me 
ask  you  how  you  have  set  to  work.' 

Laurence  explained  to  him  that  they  had 
begun,  on  Leslie's  suggestion,  with  consider- 
ing what  society,  or  the  life  of  the  highest 
classes,  would  be  at  its  best ;  and  that  they 
were  going  to  see  afterwards  what  was 
implied  in  this. 

'Indeed!'  said  Mr,.  Herbert  medita- 
tively. '  Now,  that  is  a  really  beautiful  way 
of  going  about  the  business.  And  how  far, 
let  me  ask  you,  have  you  got  with  your 
picture  of  these  highest  classes  ?  I  trust 
at  all  events  that  you  have  made  a  good 
beginning.' 

*  A  beginning,'  said  Laurence,  *  is  all  that 
we  have  made.  We  have  agreed  that  our 
society  is  to  have  the  utmost  polish,  ease, 
and  grace  of  manner,  and  the  completest 
savoir-vivre.  It  is,  in  fact,  to  be  a  sort  of 
exemplar  of  human  life  at  its  highest  con- 
ceivable completeness.' 

'  Excuse  me,'  said  Mr.  Herbert,  'but  the 
ways  of  polite  life,  and  the  manners  of  fine 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  are  beautiful  only  as 
the  expression  of  a  beautiful  spirit  I  They 
are  altogether  hateful  as  the  ornament  or  the 
covering  of  a  vile  one.' 

'Yes,  Herbert,  yes,'  exclaimed  Mr.  Luke, 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  I.  173 

with  a  long  sigh.  '  And  I  was  just  going  to 
say  this,  when  you  joined  us — that  to  make 
society  really  good — even  really  brilliant  and 
entertaining — one  thing  is  wanted,  and  that  is 
true  and  genuine  culture.  Then  let  us  have 
the  polish  by  all  means ;  but  let  it  be  a 
diamond  we  polish,  and  not  a  pebble.  Our 
society  must  be  one  that  does  not  merely 
dance,  and  hunt,  and  shoot.  It  must  think, 
and  reason,  and  read.  It  must  be  familiar — 
the  whole  of  it  must  be  familiar — with  the 
great  thoughts  of  the  world,  the  great  facts  of 
the  world,  and  the  great  books  of  the  world. 
You  want  all  this,  if  you  would  be  perfectly 
brilliant  in  your  salons,  as  well  as  really  pro- 
found in  your  studies.' 

This  was  assented  to  by  nearly  all.  Lady 
Ambrose  however  looked  a  little  uncomfort- 
able, and  not  quite  satisfied  about  some- 
thing. 

'  Don't  you  think,'  she  said  at  last,  '  that  if 
everyone  is  to  have  so  much  culture,  society 
will  tend  to  become — well — just  a  little ' 

*  Well,  Lady  Ambrose  }  '  said  Laurence. 

'  Well,  just  a  little  bit  dhe.  It  will  be  all 
too  bookish,  if  you  understand  what  I  mean. 
Don't  you  know  when  anyone  comes  to  see 
you  in  London,  and  will  talk  of  nothing  but 
books,  one  always  fancies  it  is  because  he  isn't 


174  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

— it's  very  uncharitable  to  say  so,  but  still  it's 
true — because  he  isn't  very  much  in  society, 
and  doesn't  know  many  people  to  talk  about  ?' 

*  I  always  think  it  such  a  blessing,'  said 
Lord  Allen,  '  to  find  anyone  who  will  talk 
about  books,  and  will  not  be  perpetually  bor- 
ing one  with  vulgar  gossip  and  scandal.' 

'  Oh,  so  do  I,'  said  Lady  Ambrose  eagerly, 
'  but  that  was  not  what  I  meant  exactly.  Mr. 
Laurence  knows  what  I  mean ;  I'm  sure  he 
does.  No  one  can  delight  in  a  book  more  than 
I  ;  but  still — '  she  said,  pausing  to  think  how 
much  of  what  she  considered  culture  was  to  be 
found  in  those  London  drawing-rooms  where 
she  felt  her  own  life  completest,  'still — 
somehow — '  she  said  with  a  faint  smile,  '  it  is 
possible  to  be  too  literary,  isn't  it,  as  well  as 
too  anything  else  ? ' 

'  Perfectly  true,  Lady  Ambrose,'  said  Mr. 
Luke — Lady  Ambrose  was  delighted — '  peo- 
ple continually  ajx  too  literary — to  my  cost  I 
know  it ;  and  that  is  because  the  world  at  large 
— what  is  called  the  reading  world  even  more 
than  the  non-reading  world — are  hopelessly  at 
sea  as  to  what  books  are,  and  what  they  really 
do  for  us.  In  other  words,  if  you  will  forgive 
my  harping  as  I  do  upon  a  single  expression, 
they  lack  culture,' 

'  Why,  I  thought  culture   zvas  books  and 


BOOK  HI.     CHAPTER  7.  175 

literariness,  and  all  that,'  Lady  Ambrose 
murmured  half  aloud,  with  a  look  of  be- 
wilderment. Mr.  Herbert  however  suddenly 
came  to  her  rescue. 

*  Now,  all  this,'  he  said,  '  is  most  interesting ; 
but  I  feel  myself,  something  as  I  imagine  Lady 
Ambrose  does,  that  I  should  like  to  know 
a  little  more  clearly  what  culture  is,  and  what 
you  mean  by  it,  when  you  call  it  the  essence 
of  good  society.' 

'  Yes,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  '  this  is  just 
what  I  like.  Come,  Mr.  Luke,  suppose  you 
were  to  tell  us.' 

'Suppose,'  said  Mr.  Luke  with  an  august 
wave  of  his  hand,  '  instead  of  that  we  ask  Mr. 
Laurence  to  tell  us.  No  one  can  do  so  better 
than  he.  I,  Lady  Ambrose,  have  perhaps 
grown  something  too  much  of  a  specialist  to 
be  able  to  put  these  things  in  a  sufficiently 
popular  way.' 

'  Ah,'  said  Mr.  Herbert, '  this  is  really  nice. 
I  shall  like  to  listen  to  this.  But  you  must 
allow  me  to  be  merely  a  listener,  and  not  ask 
me  for  instruction.  I  assure  you  I  am  here 
altogether  to  be  instructed.' 

Laurence,  with  some  diffidence,  assented 
to  what  was  asked  of  him  ;  and  there  was  a 
general  rustling  on  all  sides  of  the  party  settling 
themselves    down    more  luxuriously   on    the 


176  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

grass.  Every  influence  of  the  summer  afternoon 
conspired  to  make  all  take  kindly  to  the  topic 
— the  living  airy  whisper  of  the  leaves  over- 
head, the  wandering  scents  of  the  flowers 
that  the  breeze  just  made  perceptible,  the 
musical  splash  of  the  fountain  in  its  quiet 
restlessness,  the  luxury  of  the  mossy  turf  as 
soft  as  sleep  or  rose-leaves,  and  a  far  faint 
murmur  of  church-bells  that  now  and  then 
invaded  the  ear  gently,  like  a  vague  appealing 
dream.  Mr.  Saunders  even  was  caressed  by 
his  flattered  senses  into  peacefulness ;  the 
high  and  dry  light  of  the  intellect  ceased  to 
scintillate  in  his  eyes  ;  the  spirit  of  progress 
condescended  to  take  a  temporary  doze. 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  II.  177 


CHAPTER   II. 

ND  now,  Mr.  Laurence,'  said  Lady- 
Ambrose,  '  begin  at  the  begin- 
ning, please,  and  don't  do  as  Lord 
Kennington  did  at  the  Eton  and 
Harrow  match  the  other  day — go  talking  to 
me  about  "overs,"  and  "long-stops,"  and 
things  like  that,  before  I  was  even  quite  sure 
of  the  difference  between  "  out  "  and  "  in."  ' 

'  Of  course,'  Laurence  began,  smiling 
with  a  little  prefatory  shyness,  '  we  can  all 
understand  the  difference  between  a  coarse 
common  rustic  palate,  like  that  of  the  burly 
farmer,  for  instance,  who  just  enjoys  food  in 
a  brute  way  when  he  is  hungry,  and  drink  so 
long  as  it  is  spirituous  at  all  times  ;  and  the 
palate  of  the  true  epicure,  that  is  sensitive  to 
taste  as  the  nicest  ear  is  to  music,  and  can 
discriminate  perfectly  all  the  subtle  semitones 
and  chords  of  flavour.  Well,  transfer  this 
image  from  the  mouth  to  the  mind,  and 
there's  the  whole  thing  in  a  nutshell.  There 
is  culture  and  no  culture.     A  person  is  really 

N 


178  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

cultivated  when  he  can  taste  not  only  the 
broad  flavours  of  life — gulping  its  joys  and 
sorrows  down,  either  with  a  vulgar  grimace 
of  disgust,  or  an  equally  vulgar  hearty  vo- 
racity ;  but  when  with  a  delicate  self-posses- 
sion he  appreciates  all  the  subtler  taste  of 
things,  when  he  discriminates  between  joy 
and  joy,  between  sorrow  and  sorrow,  between 
love  and  love,  between  career  and  career  ; 
discerning  in  all  incidents  and  emotions  their 
beauty,  their  pathos,  their  absurdity,  or  their 
tragedy,  as  the  case  may  be.' 

'  You  mean,  then,'  said  Miss  Merton, 
*  that  a  man  of  the  highest  culture  is  a  sort  of 
emotional  bon  vivant  ? ' 

*  That  surely  is  hardly  a  fair  way — '  began 
Laurence. 

*  Excuse  me,  my  dear  Laurence,'  broke 
in  Mr  Luke,  in  his  most  magnificent  of 
manners,  '  it  is  perfectly  fair — it  is  admirably 
fair.  Emotional  bon  vivant ! '  he  exclaimed. 
'  I  thank  Miss  Merton  for  teaching  me  that 
word!  for  it  may  remind  us  all,'  Mr.  Luke 
continued,  drawing  out  his  words  slowly,  as 
if  he  liked  the  taste  of  them,  '  how  near  our 
view  of  the  matter  is  to  that  of  a  certain 
Galilean  peasant — of  whom  Miss  Merton  has 
perhaps  heard — who  described  the  highest 
culture    by  just   the   same    metaphor,    as   a 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  II.  179 

hunger  and  a  thirst  after  righteousness.  Our 
notion  of  it  differs  only  from  his,  from  the 
Zeitgeist  having  made  it  somewhat  wider.' 

Miss  Merton,  in  her  inmost  soul,  did  any- 
thing but  return  Mr.  Luke's  compliment,  and 
consider  his  comment  on  her  words  as  either 
admirably  or  perfectly  fair.  However,  she 
held  her  peace.  The  thoughts  of  Lady 
Ambrose  had  been  flowing  in  a  slightly  dif- 
ferent direction. 

'But  what  I  want  to  ask,'  she  said,  *  is 
this,  I  want  to  know  why  it  is  that  whenever 
one  hears  it  said,  "  Oh,  So-and-so  is  a  very 
adtivated  person,"  one  always  expects  to  find 
him — well,  almost  half  professional  as  it  were, 
or  at  least  able  to  talk  of  nothing  but  music, 
or  painting,  or  books  ?  I  mean,  a  man  who's 
vierely  a  cultivated  person  doesn't  seem  ever 
to  be  quite  a  man  of  the  world,  or  to  be  much 
good  in  society,  except  when  one  wants  him 
to  talk  on  his  own  subjects — I  hate  people 
myself  who  have  subjects — and  then,  ten  to 
one,  he  doesn't  know  when  to  leave  off  Now, 
Mr.  Laurence,  I  see  you  want  to  interrupt 
me ;  but  do  let  me  say  my  say.  A  right 
amount  of  culture  is  of  course  delightful,  and 
personally,  I  don't  much  care  for  people  who 
haven't  got  it.  But  too  much  of  it — I'm  sure, 
Mr.  Laurence,  you  must  agree  with  me  at 

N  2 


I  So  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

heart — Is  a  mistake.  And  that,  you  know,  is 
all  I  mean  about  it ;  nothing  more  than 
that.' 

*  Ah,'  said  Laurence,  smiling,  '  I  think  I 
see  what  it  is.  You  will  look  on  culture  as 
some  special  kind  of  accomplishment  or  taste, 
like  music  ;  and  you  think  that  in  some  special 
way  it  is  bound  up  with  books  ;  and  books 
you  look  upon  as  something  special  also, 
betrinninof  and  endingf  with  themselves  ;  and, 
unless  I  am  much  mistaken,  you  think  that 
the  more  books  a  man  has  read,  the  more 
cultivated  you  may  safely  call  him.' 

'  Not  all  books,'  said  Lady  Ambrose  in 
an  injured  tone.  '  Of  course  I  don't  mean 
trashy  novels,  and  of  course  I  don't  mean 
blue-books,  or  books  of  history.' 

'  But  what  I  want  first  of  all  to  impress 
on  you,'  said  Laurence,  '  is  that  whatever  its 
relation  to  books  may  be,  culture  is  by  no 
means  a  bookish  thing,  or  a  thing  that  ought 
to  be  less  in  place  at  Hurlingham  than  at 
the  South  Kensington  Museum.  Nor  is  it 
in  any  sense  a  hobby,  or  a  special  taste,  to 
be  gratified  at  the  expense  of  anything  else. 
Instead  of  that,  it  is  the  education  of  all  our 
tastes,  of  all  our  powers  of  enjoying  life  ;  and, 
so  far  from  its  being  a  thing  for  recluses,  and 
a  substitute  for  society,  it  is  only  when  natu- 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  11.  i8l 

rallsed  in  the  best  society  that  it  can  at  all  do 
itself  justice  in  expressing  itself  outwardly,  or 
even  exist  in  any  completeness  inwardly.' 

Lady  Ambrose  smiled,  and  looked  more 
interested,  and  began  to  give  Laurence  her 
most  intelligent  attention. 

'Still,'  Laurence  went  on,  'culture  and 
books  have  a  good  deal  to  do  with  one 
another ;  and  since  they  are  so  bound  up  to- 
gether in  your  mind,  let  us  try  to  see  at  once 
what  the  relation  really  is.  Let  us  begin, 
then,  with  that  part  of  culture  which  in  this 
sense  is  most  bound  up  with  books — most 
bound  up  because  it  cannot  be  got  without 
them  ;  the  part  of  culture,  I  mean,  that  comes 
from  the  knowledge  of  the  past — from  a  know- 
ledge of  history,  in  short,  or  parts  of  history.' 

Lady  Ambrose  here  took  Laurence  fairly 
aback  by  the  way  in  which  she  repeated  the 
word  '  History  !  ' 

'  Well,  judging  from  the  results  I  have 
seen,'  she  said,  with  an  amount  of  decision  in 
her  voice  that  was  positively  startling,  '  I  can- 
not say,  Mr.  Laurence,  that  I  agree  with  you. 
And  I  think  that  on  this  subject  I  have  a 
right  to  speak.' 

'  What  on  earth  can  the  woman  be  mean- 
ing ? '  said  Mr.  Luke  to  himself. 

'  It  is  not  a  fortnight  ago,'  Lady  Ambrose 


l82  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

went  on,  *  that  I  sat  at  dinner  by  somebody 
— I  won't  tell  you   his  name — who  had  not 
only  read  heaven  knows   how  much   history, 
but  had  written,  I  believe,  even  more  than  he 
had  read.     And  what  do  you  think  this  good 
man  did  during  all  the  early  part  of  dinner  ? 
Why,  he  did  nothing  but  fume,  and  fret,  and 
bluster,  so  that  everyone  was  made  uncom- 
fortable, simply  because  somebody  said  that 
King   Harold  was   not  quite  so  excellent  a 
character  as  the  late  Prince  Consort ;  and  I 
heard  him   muttering,  "  What  monstrous  in- 
justice !      What    monstrous    ignorance  ! "    to 
himself  for  nearly  half  an  hour.      I  don't  think 
I  ever  saw  such  a — I  was  going  to  say,'  said 
Lady  Ambrose,  laughing  softly,  '  such  a  beast 
— but  I  won't ;  I'll  say  a  bear  instead.     At 
last,   however — I   don't  know  how   it   came 
about — he  said  to  me,  in  a  very  solemn  voice, 
"  What  a  terrible  defeat  that  was  which  we 
had  at  Bouvines  !  "     I  answered  timidly — not 
thinking  we  were  at  war  with  anyone — that  I 
had  seen   nothing    about    it  in    the   papers. 
"H'm!"  he  said,  giving  a  sort  of  a  grunt 
that    made    me     feel     dreadfully    ignorant, 
"  why,  I  had  an  Excursus  on  it  myself  in  the 
*  Archaeological    Gazette,'    only    last   week." 
And,   do  you  know,   it  turned  out  that  the 
Battle    of     Bouvines     was    fought    in     the 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  11.  1^3 

thirteenth  century,  and  had,  as  far  as  I  could 
make  out,  something  to  do  with  Magna 
Charta.  Now,  Mr.  Laurence,  if  that's  the 
sort  of  culture  one  gets  from  studying 
history,  I'm  glad  I've  forgotten  even  the 
names  of  the  twelve  Caesars,  and  the  dates 
of  the  kings  of  England.  Besides,'  Lady 
Ambrose  added,  '  it  makes  one  think  what 
a  serious  thing  it  is  to  lose  a  battle,  if 
people  are  to  be  made  so  cross  about  it  six 
hundred  years  afterwards.' 

'  I  quite  agree  with  you,'  said  Laurence, 
'  that  if  that's  the  sort  of  culture  one  gets 
from  history,  we  had  better  never  open  a 
history  book  again.  But  history,  Lady 
Ambrose,  has  very  little  to  do  with  the 
Battle  of  Bouvines,  and  nothing  with  the 
character  of  Harold.' 

'  Then  what  has  it  got  to  do  with  ? ' 
asked  Lady  Ambrose  incredulously.  '  It 
certainly  has  to  do  with  kings,  and  wars,  and 
facts,  and  dates,  hasn't  it  ? ' 

'  What  people  call  facts,'  said  Laurence, 
'  are  only  the  dry  bones  of  history.  It  is 
quite  true  that  most  professed  historians  have 
hitherto,  instead  of  painting  the  face  of  the 
past,  simply  made  discrepant  notes  about 
the  shape  of  its  skull  :  everything  that  could 
give  the  shape  of  the  skull  the  least  signifi- 


1 84  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

cance  they  left  iinthought  of,  or  dismissed  it 
in  an  occasional  chapter.  But  really  the 
least  important  of  all  the  world's  events  are 
those  that  you  can  localise  exactly,  and  put 
an  exact  date  to ;  those  which  alone  most 
historians  see.' 

*  But,'  interposed  Miss  Merton,  '  don't 
you  call  such  things  as  the  events  in  Caesar's 
life,  for  instance,  or  Hildebrand's,  history?' 

*  Looked  on  simply  as  events,'  said 
Laurence,  '  I  call  them  biography,  or  I  call 
them  illustrations  of  history  ;  but  I  do  not 
call  them  history.  History,  in  its  true  sense, 
is  a  travelling  in  the  past ;  the  best  of 
histories  would  be  but  the  carriage  or  the 
steamboat  you  travelled  by  ;  your  histories  of 
dates  and  battles  are  at  best  but  the  Brad- 
shaws  and  the  railway-maps.  Our  past  must 
be  an  extension  of  the  present,  or  it  is  no 
real  past.  Now  I  expect.  Lady  Ambrose, 
that,  in  its  true  sense,  you  know  a  good  deal 
more  history  than  you  are  aware  of.  I  saw 
you  reading  Saint-Simon  yesterday  evening, 
and  you  alluded  to  Grammont's  Memoirs  at 
dinner.' 

'Oh,  of  course,'  said  Lady  Ambrose, 
'  books  like  that !  But,  then,  they  really  give 
you  such  a  notion  of  the  times,  and  quite 
take  you  back  to  them.' 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  11.  185 

'  Nothing  is  history  that  does  not,'  said 
Laurence. 

'  Really,'  exclaimed  Lady  Ambrose, 
brightening.  '  "  II  y  a  plus  de  vingt  ans  que 
je  dis  de  la  prose,  sans  que  j'en  susse  rien." 
And  so  it  seems  that  I  have  known  history 
without  suspecting  it,  just  as  M.  Jourdain 
talked  prose.' 

*  Pardon  me,'  cried  Mr.  Saunders,  '  if  I 
interrupt  you  for  a  moment ;  but,  Mr. 
Laurence,  though  I  admit  that  there  is  a 
great  deal  of  truth  in  what  you  say,  you 
have  not  even  alluded  to  the  great  function 
of  history,  nor  have  you  even  hinted  at  the 
great  use  of  facts.  However,  perhaps  I  had 
better  reserve  what  I  have  to  say  on  this,  as 
well  as  on  certain  other  matters,  till  by-and- 

by.' 

'  Very  well,'  said  Laurence,  '  if  history, 
then,  is  a  travelling  in  the  past — what  else  it 
is,  as  Mr.  Saunders  says,  we  can  talk  of  after- 
wards— don't  you  see  what  it  does  for  us,  Lady 
Ambrose,  in  the  way  of  culture — does  for  us, 
not  as  students,  but  as  men  and  women  of 
the  world  ?  Just  think  for  a  moment  what 
our  own  age  would  seem  to  us  if  all  the  past, 
beyond  the  memories  of  our  grandfathers, 
was  a  blank  to  us ;  and  then  think  how 
infinitely   our   minds   are   enlarged,    how   a 


186  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

freer  air,  as  it  were,  seems  to  blow  through 
them,  even  from  that  vague  knowledge  of  the 
past  afloat  in  the  world,  which  we  pick  up 
here  and  there  as  we  go  along.  Even  that 
has  an  effect  upon  us.  It  prevents  us  being, 
as  we  else  should  be,  merely  temporal  people, 
who  are  just  as  narrow-minded  and  dull  as 
those  merely  local  people — the  natives  of  a 
neighbourhood — who  wear  gorgeous  ribands 
at  flower-shows  in  the  country.  Don't  you 
remember  last  year,  when  I  was  staying  with 
you,  how  you  pointed  some  of  them  oat  to 
me,  and  how  amused  you  were  at  their  ways 
and  their  finery  ?  ' 

Lady  Ambrose  smiled  and  nodded. 

*  Go  on,  Mr.  Laurence — I  can  understand 
all  this,'  she  said.  '  But  I  want  to  hear  a 
little  more.' 

'  Well,'  said  Laurence,  '  your  own  know- 
ledge of  the  history  of  France  and  England 
during  the  last  two  hundred  years — you 
know  well  enough  how  that  has  made  you, 
in  a  certain  sense,  more  a  woman  of  the 
world.  What  would  you  be,  for  instance,  if 
you  never  knew  that  there  had  been  a 
French  Revolution,  or  an  English  Revolution 
— a  Cromwell,  or  a  Louis  Ouatorze,  or  a  Mira- 
beau  ?  But  your  knowledge  of  history  does 
not  end  here.     You  know  something,  at  any 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  II.  187 

rate,  of  the  feudal  times.  You  know  what  a 
castle  was  like,  what  a  knight  was  like,  what  a 
monk  was  like.  You  know  something,  too, 
of  Roman  and  Greek  history  ;  and,  come — 
to  go  no  farther — you  know  the  Bible.' 

'  I  hope,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  in  a  voice 
of  reproving  solemnity,  '  that  one  would  not 
call  that  history.' 

'  Certainly  not,'  said  Mr.  Saunders,  with 
a  small  suppressed  chuckle. 

'  At  all  events,'  proceeded  Laurence, 
ignoring  these  interruptions,  '  you  know 
something  of  Rome,  and  Greece,  and 
Palestine,  and  Egypt ;  and  each  of  these 
names  is  really  a  little  aerial  chariot  which 
carries  your  imagination  back  as  you  pro- 
nounce it  into  some  remote  age,  when  life 
was  different  from  what  it  is  now.  So  is  the 
mind  widened  by  even  a  little  vague  history. 
Or,  just  repeat  to  yourself  such  words  as 
France  and  Italy,  and  think  for  a  moment  of 
the  effect  of  them.  They  are  not  mere  names 
— mere  geographical  expressions  ;  but  they 
are  spells  which  evoke,  whether  you  will  or  no, 
hosts  of  subtle  associations,  rising  up  like  spirits 
out  of  the  past  centuries,  and  hovering  in  the 
air  round  you  with  their  unbidden  influence, 
and  mixing  with  all  your  notions  of  Europe 
as  it  is  now.     Or,  would  you  feel  the  matter 


1 88  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

more  strongly  yet,  think,  when  you  are 
travelHng,  what  but  for  history  would  Venice 
be,  or  Athens,  or  Jerusalem  ?  If  it  were 
not  for  history,  be  it  never  so  vaguely 
understood,  would  you  find  the  same 
indescribable  fascination  in  Rome  ? ' 

'  I  never  was  at  Rome,'  said  Lady 
Ambrose.  '  We're  going  there  next  winter 
with  the  Kenningtons.' 

This  piece  of  intelligence  brought 
Laurence  to  a  stop.  Mr.  Rose,  however, 
whose  imagination  had  been  fired  by  all 
this  talk  about  history,  suddenly  broke 
forth. 

'  And  also,'  he  exclaimed,  '  is  it  not  by 
history  alone  that  we  can  in  our  day  learn 
anything  of  the  more  subtle  and  gorgeous 
dyes  that  life  is  capable  of  taking — how  fair  a 
thing  it  may  be,  how  rich  in  harmonious 
freedom,  and  beauty  of  form,  and  love,  and 
passionate  friendship  ?  Why,  but  for  history, 
what  should  we  be  now  but  a  flock  of  list- 
less barbarians,  6veLpdro)v  akiyKioi  ixop(j)a2(Ti 
<f)vp6vT€s  €t/cry  TrdvTa  ?  Would  not  all  life's 
choicer  and  subtler  pleasures  be  lost  to  us,  if 
Athens  did  not  still  live  to  redeem  us  from 
the  bondage  of  the  middle  age,  and  if  the 
Italian  Renaissance — that  strange  child  of 
Aphrodite  and  Tannhaiiser,  did  not  still  live 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  II.  189 

to  Stimulate  us  out  of  the  torpor  of  the 
present  age  ?  What,  but  for  history,  should 
we  know,'  cried  Mr.  Rose,  '  of  the  x^P'^  ^^ 
Greece,  of  the  lust  of  Rome,  of  the  strange 
secrets  of  the  Borgias  ?  Consider,  too,  the 
bowers  of  quiet,  full  of  sweet  dreams,  that 
history  will  always  keep  for  us — how  it 
surrounds  the  house  of  the  present  with  the 
boundless  gardens  of  the  past — gardens  rich  in 
woods,  and  waters,  and  flowers,  and  outlooks 
on  illimitable  seas.  Think  of  the  immortal 
dramas  which  history  sets  before  us  ;  of  the 
keener  and  profounder  passions  which  it 
shows  in  action,  of  the  exquisite  groups  and 
figures  it  reveals  to  us,  of  nobler  mould  than 
ours — Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton,  Achilles 
and  Patroclus,  David  and  Jonathan,  our 
English  Edward  and  the  fair  Piers  Gaveston, 
a/xa  r'  w/cv/xo^o?  koI  6'L^vpo<;  irepl  Trdvrcov,  or, 
above  all,  those  two  by  the  agnus  castus  and 
the  plane-tree  where  Ilyssus  flowed,' — Mr. 
Rose's  voice  gradually  subsided, — '  and  where 
the  Attic  grasshoppers  chirped  in  shrill 
summer  choir.' 

'  At  any  rate,  Lady  Ambrose,'  Laurence 
resumed  briskly,  '  you  now  see  something  of 
the  way  in  which  history  gives  us  culture  ; 
and  you  see,  too, — this  is  the  chief  point  I 
want  to  impress  upon  you, — that  in  history, 


I90  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

and  many  other  things  as  well,  books  are 
only  the  telescopes  through  which  we  see 
distant  facts  ;  and  we  no  more  become  book- 
ish by  such  a  use  of  books  than  you  became 
optical  when  you  looked  through  your 
telescope  in  Gloucestershire,  and  saw  Captain 
Audley,  at  the  bottom  of  the  park,  proposing 
to  your  under-keeper's  daughter.' 

*  I  really  do  believe,'  said  Lady  Ambrose, 
'  that  that  man  is  a  little  off  his  head.  How- 
ever,' she  went  on  laughing,  '  I  give  up  about 
the  bookishness,  Mr.  Laurence,  and  I  dare 
say  one  really  is  the  better  for  knowing 
something  about  history ;  but  still,  I  can't 
help  thinking  that  the  chief  thing  to  know 
about  is,  after  all,  the  life  about  one,  and  that 
knowledge,  just  like  charity,  should  begin  at 
home.' 

'  There,'  said  Laurence,  *  we  quite  agree  ; 
and  that,  if  I  managed  to  express  myself 
clearly,  was  the  very  thing  that  I  set  out  with 
saying.  It  is  with  the  life  about  us  that  all  our 
concern  lies ;  and  culture's  double  end  is  simply 
this — to  make  us  appreciate  that  life,  and  to 
make  that  life  worth  appreciating.  We  only 
study  the  past  to  adorn  our  present,  or  to  make 
our  view  of  it  clearer.  And  now,  since  we  have 
at  any  rate  suggested  how  this  is  done,  let  us 
put  the  past,  and  the  distant  too — everything, 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  11.  191 

in  fact,  to  which  books  are  only  the  telescopes 
— out  of  our  minds  altogether,  and  merely 
consider  the  real  heart  of  the  matter — culture 
and  the  present.  I  tried  to  explain  just  now 
that  we  meant  by  a  man  of  culture  one  on 
whom  none  of  the  finer  flavours  of  life  are 
lost — who  can  appreciate,  sympathise  with, 
criticise,  all  the  scenes,  situations,  sayings,  or 
actions  around  him — a  sad  or  happy  love- 
affair,  a  charm  of  manner  and  conversation, 
a  beautiful  sunset,  or  a  social  absurdity.  I 
declare,'  said  Laurence,  '  I  could  tell  better 
whether  a  man  was  really  cultivated,  from  the 
way  in  which  he  talked  gossip,  or  told  a  story, 
than  from  the  way  in  which  he  discussed  a 
poem  or  a  picture/ 

'  Certainly,'  said  Leslie.  '  I  don't  call  a 
woman  cultivated  who  bothers  me  at  dinner 
first  with  discussing  this  book  and  then  that 
— whose  one  perpetual  question  is,  "  Have 
you  read  So-and-so  ?  "  But  I  call  a  woman 
cultivated  who  responds  and  who  knows  what 
I  mean  as  we  pass  naturally  from  subject 
to  subject — who  by  a  flash  or  a  softness  in 
her  eyes,  by  a  slight  gesture  of  the  hand, 
by  a  sigh,  by  a  flush  in  the  cheek,  makes 
me  feel  as  I  talk  of  some  lovely  scene  that 
she  too  could  love  it — as  I  speak  of  love  or 
sorrow,  makes  me  feel  that  she  hersdf  has 


192  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

known  them  ;  as  I  speak  of  ambition,  or  enmd^ 
or  hope,  or  remorse,  or  loss  of  character, 
makes  me  feel  that  all  these  are  not  mere 
names  to  her,  but  things.' 

'  Do  you  call  me  cultivated,  Mr.  Leslie  ? ' 
whispered  Mrs.  Sinclair,  in  a  soft  paren- 
thesis. 

'  I  mean,'  said  Leslie,  finishing,  '  I  like  to 
hear  each  key  I  touch  make,  not  a  dead  thud, 
as  on  a  piece  of  wood,  but  strike  a  musical 
string.' 

'  Good,'  murmured  Mr.  Rose ;  '  that  is 
good!  Yes,'  he  continued,  'the  aim  of  culture, 
if  Mr.  Leslie  will  lend  me  his  nice  metaphor, 
is  indeed  to  make  the  soul  a  musical  instru- 
ment, which  may  yield  music  either  to  itself 
or  to  others,  at  any  appulse  from  without ; 
and  the  more  elaborate  a  man's  culture  is,  the 
richer  and  more  composite  can  this  music  be. 
The  minds  of  some  men  are  like  a  simple 
pastoral  reed.  Only  single  melodies,  and 
these  unaccompanied,  can  be  played  upon 
them — glad  or  sad ;  whilst  the  minds  of 
others,  who  look  at  things  from  countless 
points  of  view,  and  realise,  as  Shakespeare 
did,  their  composite  nature — their  minds 
become,  as  Shakespeare's  was,  like  a  great 
orchestra.  Or  sometimes,'  said  Mr.  Rose 
dreamily,  as  if  his   talk  was  lapsing  into  a 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER   11.  193 

soliloquy,  'when  he  is  a  mere  passive  ob- 
server of  things,  letting-  impressions  from 
without  move  him  as  they  will,  I  would 
compare  the  man  of  culture  to  an  ^olian 
harp,  which  the  winds  at  will  play  through — 
a  beautiful  face,  a  rainbow,  a  ruined  temple, 
a  death-bed,  or  a  line  of  poetry,  wandering  in 
like  a  breath  of  air  amongst  the  chords  of 
his  soul,  touching  note  after  note  into  soft 
music,  and  at  last  gently  dying  away  into 
silence.' 

'Well,  now,'  said  Laurence,  in  a  very 
matter-of-fact  tone,  for  he  saw  that  Mr.  Rose's 
dreamy  manner  always  tended  to  confuse 
Lady  Ambrose,  *  since  we  are  now  clear  that 
the  aim  of  culture  is  to  make  us  better  com- 
pany as  men  and  women  of  the  world,  let  us 
consider  a  little  farther  how  culture  is  at- 
tained. We  have  just  spoken  of  histories 
and  other  books,  which  merely  bring  us  face 
to  face  with  facts  that  would  else  be  out  of 
our  reach.  We  now  come  to  two  other  things 
— the  facts  of  the  life  about  us,  the  facts 
which  experience  teaches  us,  and  to  which  all 
other  facts  are  secondary  ;  and,  farther,  to 
the  way  in  which  all  this  knowledge — the 
knowledge  of  the  living  present  especially — is 
(for  we  have  really  not  talked  of  this  at  all 
yet)  turned  into  culture.     Mere  acquaintance 

o 


194  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC, 

Avith  facts  will  not  do  it ;  mere  experience  of 
facts  will  not  do  it.  A  woman,  for  instance, 
may  have  had  all  kinds  of  experience — 
society,  sorrow,  love,  travel,  remorse,  distrac- 
tion— and  yet  she  may  not  be  cultivated.  She 
may  have  gone  through  everything  only  half 
consciously.  She  may  never  have  recognised 
what  her  life  has  been.  What  is  needed  to 
teach  her — to  turn  this  raw  material  into 
culture  ?  Here,  Lady  Ambrose,  we  come 
to  our  friends  the  books  again — not,  however, 
to  such  books  as  histories,  but  to  books  of  art, 
to  poetry,  and  books  akin  to  poetry.  The 
former  do  but  enlarge  our  own  common  ex- 
perience. The  latter  are  an  experience  in 
themselves,  and  an  experience  that  interprets 
all  former  experiences.  The  mind,  if  I  may 
borrow  an  illustration  from  photography,  is  a 
sensitised  plate,  always  ready  to  receive  the 
images  made  by  experience  on  it.  Poetry  is 
the  developing  solution,  which  first  makes 
these  images  visible.  Or,  to  put  it  in 
another  way,  if  some  books  are  the  telescopes 
with  which  we  look  at  distant  facts,  poetry — 
I  use  the  word  in  its  widest  sense — is  a  mag-ic 
mirror  which  shows  us  the  facts  about  us 
reflected  in  it  as  no  telescope  or  microscope 
could  show  them  to  us.  Let  a  person  of  ex- 
perience look  into  this,  and  experience  then 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  II.  195 

becomes  culture.  For  In  that  magic  mirror 
we  see  our  life  surrounded  with  issues  view- 
less to  the  common  eye.  We  see  it  com- 
passed about  with  chariots  of  fire  and  with 
horses  of  fire.  Then  we  know  the  real 
aspect  of  our  joys  and  sorrows.  We  see  the 
lineaments,  we  look  into  the  eyes  of  thoughts, 
and  desires,  and  associations,  which  had  been 
before  unseen  and  scarcely  suspected  pre- 
sences— dim  swarms  clustering  around  our 
every  action.  Then  how  all  kinds  of  objects 
and  of  feelings  begin  to  cling  together  in  our 
minds  !  A  single  sense  or  a  single  memory 
is  touched,  and  a  thrill  runs  through  count- 
less others.  The  smell  of  autumn  woods,  the 
colour  of  dying  fern,  may  turn  by  a  subtle 
transubstantiation  into  pleasures  and  faces 
that  will  never  come  again — a  red  sunset  and 
a  windy  sea-shore  into  a  last  farewell,  and  the 
regret  of  a  lifetime.' 

Laurence  had  chosen  these  illustrations  of 
his  quite  at  random  ;  but  he  was  fortunate  in 
the  last  in  a  way  which  he  never  dreamt  of. 
Lady  Ambrose,  in  her  early  and  unwise  days, 
had  actually  had  a  love-affair.  She  had  been 
engaged  to  a  handsome  young  Guardsman, 
with  only  eleven  hundred  a  year,  and  no 
prospects  but  debts ;  and  though  she  had 
successfully  exchanged  him   for  Sir  George 

o  2 


196  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC, 

and  his  million  of  money,  she  still  sometimes 
recalled  him,  and  the  wild  September  evening 
when  she  had  seen  her  last  of  him  upon 
Worthing  pier. 

'  Ah,'  she  exclaimed,  with  some  emotion 
in  her  voice,  *  I  know  exactly  what  you  mean 
now.  Why,  there  have  been  poems  at  one  time 
or  another  of  one's  life,  that  one  could  really 
hardly  bear  to  hear  repeated.  Now,  there's 
that  of  Byron's,  "  When  we  two  parted."  I 
don't  even  know  if  it  is  right  to  think  it  a 
good  poem — but  still,  do  you  know,  there 
was  a  time  when,  just  because  it  was  con- 
nected with  something — it  almost  made  me 
cry  if  anyone  repeated  or  sang  it — one  of  my 
brothers,  I  know,  who  had  a  beautiful  voice, 

was  always '  Lady  Ambrose  here  grew 

conscious  that  she  was  showing  more  feeling 
than  she  thought  at  all  becoming.  She 
blushed,  she  stammered  a  little,  and  then, 
making  a  rush  at  another  topic,  '  But  what  is 
Mr.  Rose,'  she  exclaimed,  '  saying  about  the 
Clock-tower  and  the  Thames  Embankment  ?  ' 

'  I  was  merely  thinking,'  said  Mr.  Rose, 
who  had  been  murmurincr  to  himself  at  in- 
tervals  for  some  time,  *  of  a  delicious  walk  I 
took  last  week,  by  the  river  side,  between 
Charing  Cross  and  Westminster.  The  great 
clock  struck  the  chimes  of  midnight ;  a  cool 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  II.  197 

wind  blew  ;  and  there  went  streaming  on  the 
wide  wild  waters  with  long  vistas  of  reflected 
lights  wavering  and  quivering  in  them  ;  and 
I  roamed  about  for  hours,  hoping  I  might  see 
some  unfortunate  cast  herself  from  the 
Bridge  of  Sighs.  It  was  a  night  I  thought 
well  in  harmony  with  despair.  Fancy,'  ex- 
claimed Mr.  Rose,  '  the  infinity  of  emotions 
which  the  sad  sudden  splash  in  the  dark  river 
would  awaken  in  one's  mind — and  all  due  to 
that  one  poem  of  Hood's  ! ' 

*  Yes,'  said  Laurence,  not  having  listened 
to  Mr.  Rose,  who  spoke,  indeed,  somewhat 
low,  '  Yes,'  he  said,  continuing  the  same  train 
of  thought  he  had  left  off  with,  and  looking 
first  at  Lady  Ambrose  and  then  at  Miss 
Merton,  'is  it  not  poetry  that  does  all  this 
for  the  world  ?  I  use  poetry  in  its  widest 
sense,  and  include  in  it  all  imaginative  litera- 
ture, and  other  art  as  well.  Is  it  not  the 
poet  that  gives  our  existence  all  its  deepest 
colours,  or  enables  us  to  give  them  to  it  our- 
selves ?  Is  it  not — if  I  may  quote  a  transla- 
tion of  Goethe  that  I  made  myself — 

Is't  7iot  the  harmony  that  from  his  bosom  springs, 
A?id  back  into  itself  the  whole  world  brings  ? 
When  Nature  round  her  spindle,  cold  and  strong. 
Winds  on  and  on  the  endless  threads  of  things ; 
When  all  existences,  a  tuneless  throng, 
Make  discord  as  with  jangling  strings, 


1 98  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

Whose  life-hreath  bids  the  flux  of  blind  creation 
Move  to  a  rhythmic  music  of  his  07un  ? 
Who  calls  each  single  thing  to  the  common  consecration, 
When  rapturously  it  trembles  into  tone  ? 
Who  sets  our  wild  moods  and  the  storms  in  tune  ? 
Our  sad  moods,  and  the  still  eve^s  crimson  gloto  ? 
Who  shotuers  down  all  the  loveliest floivers  of  J^une, 
Where  she,  the  heart's  beloved,  ^vill  go  ? 
Who,  of  a  feiu  green  leaves  in  silly  twine, 
Makes  toiVs  immortal  gue?'don,  art's  reward. 
Raises  the  mortal,  draws  down  the  divine  ? 
The  power  of  man  incarnate  in  the  bard} 

And  so,'  Laurence  went  on,  '  if  it  is  to  the 
bard  that  we  owe  all  these  fine  things,  we 
need  surely  not  fear  that  we  shall  be  thought 
bookish  if  we  say  that  a  society  cannot  be 
really  good  that  does  not  as  a  body  draw  a 
large  amount  of  its  nourishment  from  the 
bard's  work.  Of  course  in  one  sense  poetry 
exists  unwritten  ;  but  in  the  general  run  of 
people  this  will  never  properly  awake  itself, 
make  itself  available,  but  at  the  spell  of 
written  poetry.  Nay,  this  is  true  even  of  the 
poet  himself.  Why  else  does  he  externalise 
his  feelings — give  them  a  body  ?  As  I  say, 
however,  the  general  catholic  use  of  poetry 
is  not  to  make  us  admire  the  poetry  of  poems 
but  discern  the  poetry  of  life.  I  myself,' 
Laurence  went  on,  '  am  devoted  to  literature 

*  Vide  Faust,  Prologue  for  the  Theatre. 


BOOK  III.   CHAPTER  IT.  199 

as  literature,  to  poetry  as  poetry.  I  value  it 
not  only  because  it  makes  me  appreciate  the 
originals  of  the  things  it  deals  with,  but  for 
itself.  I  often  like  the  description  of  a 
sunset  better  than  I  like  a  sunset ;  I  don't 
care  two  straws  about  Liberty,  but  my  mind 
is  often  set  all  aglow  by  a  good  ode  to  her. 
I  delight  in,  I  can  talk  over,  I  can  brood 
over,  the  form  of  a  stanza,  the  music  of  a  line, 
the  turn  of  a  phrase,  the  flavour  of  an 
epithet.  Few  things  give  me  such  pleasure 
for  the  moment  as  an  apt  quotation  from 
Horace  or  Shakespeare.  But  this,  I  admit, 
is  a  hobby — a  private  hobby — this  distinct 
literary  taste,  just  as  a  taste  for  blue  china  is, 
and  must  certainly  not  be  confused  with  cul- 
ture in  its  deeper  and  wider  sense.' 

*  Ah,'  said  Mr.  Rose  earnestly,  '  don't  des- 
pise this  merely  literary  culture,  as  you  call 
it,  or  the  pleasure  it  is  to  have  at  command  a 
beautiful  quotation.  As  I  have  been  lying 
on  the  bank  here,  this  afternoon,  and  looking 
up  into  the  trees,  and  watching  the  blue  sky, 
glancing  between  the  leaves  of  them — as  I 
have  been  listening  to  the  hum  of  the  insects, 
or  looking  out  with  half-shut  eyes  towards 
the  sea  across  the  green  rustling  shrubs,  and 
the  red  rose-blossoms,  fragments  of  poetry 
have  been  murmuring  in  my  memory  like  a 


200  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

swarm  of  bees,  and  have  been  carrying  my 
fancy  hither  and  thither  in  all  manner  of 
swift  luxurious  ways.  The  "  spreading 
favour,"  for  instance,  of  these  trees  that  we 
sit  under,  brought  just  now  into  my  mind 
those  magical  words  of  Virgil's — 

O  qui  me  gelidis  in  vallibus  Haemi 
Sistat,  et  ingenti  ramorum  protegat  umbra ! 

What  a  picture  there  !  What  a  thrill  it  sent 
all  through  me,  like  a  rush  of  enchanted 
wind  !  In  another  moment  the  verse  that 
goes  just  before,  also  came  to  me — 

Virginibus  bacchata  Lacaenis 

Taygeta 

and  into  the  delicious  scene  now  around  me 
— this  beautiful  modern  garden — mixed  in- 
stantly visions  of  Greek  mountains,  and 
ragged  summits,  and  choirs  of  Laconian 
maidens  maddened  with  a  divine  enthusiasm, 
and  with  fair  white  vesture  wildly  floating. 
Again,  another  line  from  the  same  poem, 
from  the  same  passage,  touched  my  memory, 
and  changed,  in  a  moment,  the  whole  com- 
plexion of  my  feelings — 

Felix  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas. 

Think  of  that !  The  spirit  is  whirled 
away  in  a  moment  of  time,  and  set  amongst 
quite  new    images,    quite    other    sources   of 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  11.  201 

excitement.       But    again,     in    an     instant, 

the   splash    of  the  fountain   caught  my   ear, 

and    awoke,     I     scarcely     know    how,    the 

memory  of  some  lines  in  one  of  Petrarch's 

Epistles — 

Soporifero  clausam  qui  murmure  vallem 
Implet  inexhausto  descendens  alveus  amne — 

and  my  imagination,  on  the  wings  of  the 
verses,  was  borne  away  floating  towards 
Vaucluse.  Think,  then,  within  the  space  of 
five  minutes  how  many  thoughts  and  sensa- 
tions, composite  and  crowded,  can,  by  the 
agency  of  mere  literature,  enrich  the  mind, 
and  make  life  intenser.' 

*  And  I — '  said  Laurence,  smiling, — '  do 
you  see  that  far-away  sail  out  on  the  horizon 
line  ? — well,  I  caught  myself  murmuring 
over  a  scrap  of  Milton,  only  two  minutes 
ago— 

As  when  afar  at  sea  a  fleet  descried 
Hangs  in  the  clouds,  by  equinoctial  gales 
Close  sailing  from  Bengala. 

Why,  I  could  go  on  capping  verses  with  you 
the  whole  afternoon,  if  we  had  nothing  else 
to  do.  But  besides  this,  a  knowledge  of 
books  as  books  has  got  another  use.  How 
it  enriches  conversation,  by  enabling  us  to 
talk  by  hints  and  allusions,  and  to  convey  so 
many  more  meanings  than  our  actual  words 


202  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

express.  I  came  across  an  exquisite  instance 
of  this  the  other  day,  in  a  book  of  anecdotes 
about  the  poet  Rogers,  which  shows  how  a 
famiharity  with  the  scenes  even  of  Greek 
poetry  may  give  a  brilHance  to  fashionable 
talk  in  the  nineteenth  century.  One  evening 
at  Miss  Lydia  White's — she  was  a  Tory, 
and  well  known  then  in  society — a  guest  who 
was  a  Whig,  said  a  propos  of  the  depressed 
state  of  his  own  party  at  the  time,  "  There  is 
nothing  left  for  us  but  to  sacrifice  a  Tory 
virgin."  "  Yes,"  said  Miss  Lydia  White,  "  I 
believe  there's  nothino-  the  Whic^s  wouldn't 
do  to  raise  the  windy  But  yet,  after  all,  this 
is  not  t/ie  important  thing,  and  I  hope  Lady 
Ambrose  will  forgive  us  for  having  talked  so 
long  about  it' 

'  And  so  one  vnist  read  a  great  deal,  after 
all,  to  be  really  cultivated,'  said  Lady  Ambrose, 
in  a  disappointed  tone.  *  You've  made  culture 
seem  so  nice,  that  I  feel  positively  quite 
ashamed  to  think  how  seldom  now  I  look  at 
a  line  of  poetry,  except,  of  course,  when  any- 
thing new  comes  out,  that  everybody  mtisi 
read.' 

'  I  don't  think  you  need  be  afraid  on  that 
score,'  said  Leslie.  '  If  society  is  to  be  cul- 
tivated, it  must,  no  doubt,  read  a  good  deal, 
as  a  body.     But  all   its  members  need  not. 


BOOK  III.   CHAPTER  IL  203 

With  women  especially,  nothing  startles  me 
more  than  when  I  find  sometimes  how  very 
far,  if  they  have  had  any  serious  experience 
of  the  world  and  life,  a  very  little  poetry  will 

go-' 

'  I  expect,'  said  Miss  Merton,  '  that  we 
are  naturally  more  introspective  than  men, 
and  so,  in  what  concerns  ourselves,  a  very 
little  will  make  us  cultivated  ;  although  we 
don't  certainly  get  so  easily  as  men  that 
indifferent  way  of  looking  on  life  as  a 
whole,  which  I  suppose  is  what  you  call  the 
dramatic  spirit,  and  which  people  praise  so 
in  Shakespeare.  But  as  to  what  Mr.  Leslie 
says,  I  have  so  often  myself  noticed  the  same 
thing  in  girls — especially  at  times  when  they 
are  passing  into  womanhood,  without  having 
made  much  of  a  success  of  youth.  I  re- 
member one  poor  friend  of  mine,  whose 
whole  life  seemed  to  become  clear  to  her 
through  just  one  line  of  Tennyson's — 

My  life  has  crept  so  long  on  a  broken  wing. 

I  suppose   it   was  a  sort  of  magic  mirror  to 
her  as  Mr.  Laurence  was  saying  just  now.' 

*  I,'  said  Leslie,  'once  knew  some  one  at 
Baden,  who  spent  half  her  time  at  the  tables, 
as  much  the  observed  of  all  observers  as 
Worth   and    her  own   strange   beauty  could 


204  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

make  her — she  Hked  being  stared  at — and 
who  was  certainly  not  a  woman  who  gave 
much  of  her  time  to  reading.  She  was  very 
wretched  with  her  husband,  and  her  name 
was  far  from  being  above  the  reach  of  gossip. 
Talking  one  day  to  her  in  a  hardish  flippant 
sort  of  way — a  tone  of  talk  which  she 
affected  to  like — I  alluded  by  some  chance 
to  Francesca  di  Rimini  in  Dante  ;  and  I 
shall  never  forget  the  tone  in  which  she 
exclaimed,  "  Poor  Francesca !  " — its  passion 
and  its  pathos.  I  was  surprised  that  she 
had  even  looked  into  Dante  :  but  she  had  ; 
and  that  one  passage  had  lit  up  her  whole 
life  for  her — that  one  picture  of  the  two 
lovers  "going  for  ever  on  the  accursed  air."  ' 

*  How  nice  of  you,  Mr.  Leslie,'  said  Mrs. 
Sinclair,  '  to  remember  my  poor  verses ! ' 

'  Let  us  consider,  too,'  said  Laurence,  '  that 
poetry  does  not  only  enable  us  to  appreci- 
ate what  we  have  already  experienced,  but  it 
puts  us  in  the  way  of  getting  new  experi- 
ences. This  was  Wordsworth's  special 
claim  for  poetry,  that  it  widened  our  sympa- 
thies—  widened  them  in  some  new  direction 
— that  it  was  ever  giving  us,  in  fact,  not  new 
quotations,  but  new  culture.' 

*  Ah,  here,'  said  Leslie,  '  is  a  thing  that 
continually  occurs  to  me.     Just  consider  for 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  IT.  205 

a  moment  the  wonderful  social  effect  of  even 
so  partial  a  thing  as  the  culture  that  Words- 
worth himself  gave  us.  Consider  the  effect 
of  it  on  a  common  worldly  woman — let  her 
be  girl  or  matron — who  without  it  would  be 
nothing  but  a  half  mechanical  creature,  living, 
as  far  as  her  interests  went,  a  wretched  hand- 
to-mouth  existence  of  thin  distraction,  or 
eager  anxious  scheming  for  herself  or  her 
daughters.  Cultivate  her,  I  say,  just  in  this 
one  direction — give  her  but  this  one  fragment 
of  culture,  a  love  of  Nature — and  all  the 
mean  landscape  of  her  mind  will  be  lit  up 
with  a  sudden  beauty,  as  the  beam  of  ideal 
sunshine  breaks  across  it,  with  its  "  light  that 
never  was  on  sea  or  land."  I  don't  say  that 
such  a  woman  will  become  better  for  this,  but 
she  will  become  more  interesting.  In  a  girl, 
however  pretty,  what  is  there  to  interest  a 
man  if  he  reads  nothing  in  her  face  from 
night  to  night  but  that  she  is  getting  daily 
more  worn  and  jaded  in  the  search  for  a  rich 
husband  ?  Or  even,  to  go  a  step  higher, 
in  the  unthinking,  uncultivated  flirt,  so 
common  in  every  class  of  society — what  is 
there  in  her  that  a  man  will  not  soon  discover 
to  be  insipid  and  wearying  ? ' 

*  Surely,'  remonstrated  Mrs.  Sinclair  plain- 


2o6  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

lively,  '  that  rather  depends  on  what  she  is 
like.     I  must  stand  up  for  my  sex.' 

'  But  give  her,'  Leslie  went  on,  '  one 
genuine,  one  disinterested  taste,  and  all  is 
chaneed.  If  I  had  an  audience  about  me  of 
young  ladies,  whom  it  was  not  too  late  to 
advise — oirls  enterino-  on  the  world,  deter- 
mined  to  run  the  worldly  course,  and  to 
satisfy  all  the  expectations  of  the  most 
excellent  and  lowest-minded  of  chaperons,  I 
would  say  this  to  them  : — I  have  no  doubt 
you  are  all  ignorant ;  of  course  you  are  all 
vain.  That  to  make  a  brilliant  match  is  your 
great  object,  you  all  avow.  A  certain  sort  of 
flirting,  of  which  the  less  said  the  better,  is 
your  most  disinterested  taste.  I  know  all 
this  {I  should  say),  and  I  can't  help  it;  nor  do 
I  ask  you  to  alter  one  of  these  points  for  the 
better.  But  this  I  do  ask  you  to  do.  Try 
to  add  something  else  to  them.  Try  to  win 
for  yourselves  one  taste  of  a  truer  and  deeper 
sort.  Study  Wordsworth,  and  some  parts  of 
Shelley  ;  open  out  your  sympathies,  by  their 
aid,  in  just  one  direction.  Learn  to  love  the 
sea,  and  the  woods,  and  the  wild  flowers,  with 
all  their  infinite  changes  of  scent,  and  colour, 
and  sound — the  purple  moor,  the  brown 
mountain  stream,  the  rolling  mists,  the  wild 
smell  of  the  heather.     Let  these  things  grow 


BOOK  III.    CHAPTER  II.  207 

to  "  haunt  you  like  a  passion,"  learn  in  this 

way  the  art  of 

desiring 
More  in  this  world  than  any  understand. 

You'll  perhaps  find  it  a  little  dull  at  first ;  but 
go  on,  and  don't  be  disheartened ;  and  then 
— by-and-by — by-and-by,  go  and  look  in  the 
looking-glass,  and  study  your  own  face. 
Hasn't  some  new  look,  child,  come  into  your 
eyes,  and  given  them  an  expression — a  some- 
thing that  they  wanted  before  ?  Smile. 
Hasn't  your  smile  some  strange  meaning  in  it 
that  it  never  used  to  have  ?  You  are  a  little 
more  melancholy,  perhaps.  But  no  matter. 
The  melancholy  is  worth  its  cost.  You  are 
now  a  mystery.  Men  can't  see  through  you 
at  a  glance  as  they  did  ;  and  so,  as  Sterne 
says,  "you  have  their  curiosity  on  your  side," 
and  that  alone — even  that  will  have  increased 
your  value  tenfold  in  our  Babylonian 
marriage-market.' 

'  Well,  Mr.  Leslie,'  said  Lady  Ambrose 
with  severe  gravity,  '  if  that's  the  way  you'd 
talk  to  young  ladies,  I  should  be  very  careful 
you  never  spoke  to  any  that  I  had  anything 
to  do  with.' 

'  Many  people,  I  know,'  Leslie  went  on, 
passing  by  the  rebuke,  '  think  that  books  and 
culture  are  a  kind  of  substitute  for  life,  and 


2o8  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

that  the  real  masters  in  the  art  of  Hving  have 
no  need  for  this  poor  pis-allcr.  They  only 
drive  four-in-hand,  or  shoot,  or  dance,  or 
run  away  with  their  friends'  wives.  But  no 
mistake  can  be  greater.  Culture  is  not  a 
substitute  for  life,  but  the  key  to  it.  It  is 
really  to  the  men  of  culture,  to  the  men 
who  have  read  and  who  have  thought,  that 
all  exercise,  all  distractions,  mental  or  bodily, 
moral  or  immoral,  yield  their  finer  keener 
pleasures.  They  are  the  men  that  husbands 
dread  for  their  wives,  and  that  fascinating 
people  find  fascinating.' 

Lady  Ambrose  much  disapproved  of  the 
tone  of  this  speech  ;  but  none  the  less,  in  a 
certain  mysterious  way,  did  it  insidiously 
increase  her  appreciation  of  the  value  of 
culture ;  and  she  felt  that  with  Laurence  at 
any  rate  she  most  thoroughly  agreed,  when 
he  said  by  way  of  summing  up, 

'  And  so  now  I  think  we  see  what  culture 
is,  and  the  reason  why  it  is  essential  to  good 
society.  We  see  that  much  as  it  depends  on 
books,  life  is  really  the  great  thing  it  has  to  do 
with.  It  is  the  passions,  the  interests,  the 
relations,  the  absurdities  of  life  that  it  fits  us 
to  see  into,  to  taste,  to  discriminate.  And  I 
think  we  see,  too,  that  not  only  is  culture 
essential  to  good  society,  but  good  society 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  II.  209 

also  is  essential  to  culture,  and  that  there  was 
therefore  very  good  reason  for  the  exclusive- 
ness  we  began  with.  For  in  the  first  place 
I  expect  it  requires  certain  natural  advantages 
of  position  to  look  at  and  overlook  life  in 
that  sympathetic  and  yet  self-possessed  way, 
which  alone  can  give  us  a  complete  view  of 
it.  And  in  the  next  place,  the  more  we  dis- 
cern in  life,  the  more  social  polish  shall  we 
want  to  do  justice  to  our  discernment ;  and 
not  polish  only,  but  those  far  subtler  things, 
tone  and  balance  as  well.  I  think  it  was  the 
late  Lord  Lytton  who  remarked  in  one  of 
his  books,  what  an  offensive  thing  gaiety  was 
sure  to  be  in  any  woman  except  one  of  the 
most  perfect  breeding.  So  too  with  humour 
— the  greater  sense  of  humour  a  well-bred 
man  has,  the  more  delightful  he  is  ;  the 
greater  sense  of  humour  a  vulgar  man  has, 
the  more  intolerable  he  is.' 

The  measure  of  Lady  Ambrose's  assent 
was  now  almost  complete.  It  remained, 
however,  for  Mrs.  Sinclair  to  give  the  finish- 
ing touch. 

'  I  remember,'  she  said  softly  and  regret- 
fully, '  a  friend  of  mine — he  was  killed 
afterwards,  poor  man,  in  a  duel  near  Dresden 
— who  once,  when  he  w^as  down  for  some 
weeks  in  the  country  fishing,  fell  desperately 

p 


2IO  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

in  love  with  a  certain  rector's  daughter, 
who  sang,  and  painted,  and  read  German,  and 
had  a  beautiful  figure  as  well.  The  mother 
at  once  saw  what  was  in  the  wind,  and  asked 
him  direcdy  to  come  and  lunch  at  the 
rectory.  i\nd  there  three  things  happened. 
First,  the  mother  began  telling  him  what  very 
superior  society  there  was  in  the  neighbouring 
local  town  ;  "In  fact,  its  tone,"  she  said,  "  is 
almost  like  that  of  a  cathedral  town."  Then 
the  lovely  daughter  asked  him  if  he  was 
partial  to  boiled  chicken  ;  and  then,  a  little 
later  on — it  was  this  that  quite  finished  him, 
for  the  two  first  shocks  he  said  he  might  have 
got  over — in  answer  to  some  little  common 
joke  or  other  that  he  made,  she  told  him, 
with  a  sort  of  arch  smile — what  do  you 
think  ?  why,  that  he  was  saucy! 

'  I  confess,'  said  Miss  Merton,  laughing, 
'  that  it  would  take  a  very  great  deal  of  charm 
of  some  sort  to  make  one  get  over  that.  At 
any  rate,  it's  a  comfort  to  think  that  the 
young  ladies  in  our  new  Republic  won't  call 
their  admirers  "  saucy."  ' 

'  Well,'  said  Laurence,  '  and  so  we  have 
o-ot    thus     far — we    have    made    our    ideal 

o 

society  as    highly  bred,   as   highly  educated, 
as    polished,    as   sparkling,    as    graceful,    as 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  II.  211 

easy,  as  dignified,  as  we  can  possibly  imagine 
it     And  now,  what  next  ?  ' 

There  was  a  moment's  pause. 

'  What  I  should  want  in  a  Utopia,'  Allen 
broke  in  abruptly,  '  would  be  something 
definite  for  the  people  to  do,  each  in  his  own 
walk  of  life.  What  I  should  want  would  be 
some  honest,  definite,  straightforward,  re- 
ligious belief  that  we  might  all  live  by,  and 
that  would  connect  what  we  did  and  went 
through  here  with  something  more  important 
elsewhere.  Without  this,  to  start  with,'  he 
said,  half  sadly  and  half  coldly,  '  all  life  seems 
to  me  a  mockery.' 

*  And  are  you  quite  sure,'  said  Laurence, 
with  a  slight  sigh,  '  that  it  is  not  a  mockery  ? ' 

Mr.  Luke  here  saw  an  opening  for  which 
he  had  long  been  waiting. 


p? 


212  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC, 


CHAPTER    III. 

I Y  dear  Laurence,'  Mr.  Luke  began, 
*  of  course  human  life  is  a 
mockery,  if  you  leave  out  the  one 
thing  in  it  that  is  of  real  impor- 
tance. And  it  is  because  you  have  done  this, 
that  Lord  Allen  thinks  that  culture  is  so  little 
worth  caring  for,  though  I  doubt,  by  the 
way,  if  he  expressed  quite  accurately  what 
I  conclude  him  to  have  meant  However,' 
said  Mr.  Luke,  clearing  his  throat,  and 
looking  round  at  the  general  company,  '  what 
was  said  about  culture  just  now  was  perfectly 
right — perfectly  right,  and  really  capitally 
illustrated — as  far  as  it  went.  The  only  fault 
was  that,  as  I  say,  the  most  important  point 
in  the  matter  was  entirely  left  out.  It  is 
quite  true  that  culture  is,  as  Mr.  Laurence 
observed  so  happily,  the  sensitising  of  the 
mental  palate — the  making  it  a  good  taster. 
But  a  taster  of  what  ?  Not  only  of  social 
absurdities,  or  love  affairs,  or  beautiful 
scenery,  but  of  morality,  of  righteousness, 
of  Christianity.     The  really  profound  work 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  III.  213 

of  culture  is  to  make  us  judges  of  these 
— judges  able  to  tell  in  an  instant  real 
righteousness  and  real  Christianity  from 
pseudo-righteousness  and  pseudo-Christianity, 
so  that  we  may  swallow  the  true  like  the 
healing  water  of  life,  and  reject  the  false  like 
a  sample  of  bad  claret — that  we  may  have, 
in  fact,  just  the  same  horror  of  any  doctrine 
or  dogma  that  is  contrary  to  sweet  reason 
(such,  for  instance,'  he  said  confidentially  to 
Lady  Grace,  *  as  that  of  eternal  punishment) 
that  we  have  for  young  ladies  who  call  their 
friends  "saucy,"  or  for  young  ladies'  mothers 
who  look  on  a  bishop's  palace  as  a  focus 
of  the  most  polite  society.  So  I  think,  if 
you  only  all  recognise  this,  that  culture 
includes — in  fact,  essentially  is — the  discern- 
ment of  true  righteousness,  of  true  morality, 
you  need  none  of  you  fear  that  to  a  really 
cultivated  society  life  will  be  in  any  danger 
of  becoming  a  mockery.' 

'  I  was  sorry,'  said  Miss  Merton  in  a  low 
tone  to  Laurence,  *  to  hear  you  say  that  just 
now,  because  I  know  you  don't  mean  it.' 

Laurence,  who  had  been  sitting  a  little 
above  her  on  the  bank,  moved  quietly  down, 
and  placed  himself  at  her  side. 

'  You  make  me  feel  ashamed  of  myself,' 
he  said  to  her,  *  when  you  speak  like  this.' 


214  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

There  was  something  in  his  manner 
which  a  httle  embarrassed  Miss  Merton. 
She  looked  down,  and  said  nothing  for  a 
moment  ;  and  then,  not  having  quite  com- 
mand of  her  voice,  she  answered  him  in  a 
tone  rather  louder  than  she  intended. 

'  Well,'  she  said,  '  and  don't  you  think 
that  some  definite  faith  or  other  is  needed  by 
the  world  ? ' 

'  Yes,  /  think  so  ;  /  think  so.  I  entirely 
agree  with  Miss  Merton,'  exclaimed  some- 
body. But  it  was  not  Laurence.  To  the 
surprise  of  everyone,  it  was  Mr.  Saunders. 
All  eyes  were  turned  on  him. 

'Will  you  allow  me,'  he  said,  looking 
round  him  with  a  nervous  eagerness,  as 
though  doubtful  if  he  should  gain  a  hearing, 
'  will  you  allow  me  to  make  a  few  observa- 
tions here — it  will  only  take  a  moment — to 
remind  you  of  just  2.  few  things  which  I  think 
ought  not  to  be  lost  sight  of  ?  Well,'  Mr. 
Saunders  went  on,  as  he  seemed  to  have 
secured  the  ear  of  the  house,  '  in  the  first 
place  as  to  history,  just  one  word.  The  main 
use  of  history,  which  Mr.  Laurence  forgot 
altogether  to  mention,  is  of  course,  as  Comte 
has  so  well  established,  to  teach  us  his  philo- 
sophy of  it — to  show  us,  in  other  words,  how 
entirely  non  compos  mentis  the  world  was  till 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  III.  215 

our  time,  and  that  it  is  only  in  the  present 
century  that  it  has  acquired  the  power  of 
passing  a  reasonable  judgment.  And  next, 
as  to  facts  ;  mere  facts,  as  facts,  I  think  quite 
as  useless  as  Mr.  Laurence  does,  except  for 
one  reason.  And  that  reason  is  the  way  in 
which  from  every  side  they  confute,  give  the 
lie  to,  annihilate,  the  pretensions  of  revealed 
religion,  and  of  the  myths  which  it  calls  its 
history.  This,  however,  by  the  way.  It  was 
not  the  chief  thing  that  I  wanted  to  say  to 
you.  Now,  you  all,'  Mr.  Saunders  went  on, 
holding  up  his  forefinger  and  addressing  the 
company,  '  propose  to  form  a  picture  of  what 
the  world  ought  to  be — what  I  suppose  you 
hope  it  will  be ;  and  you  say,  and  very 
rightly,  that  the  great  secret  is  that  it  should 
appreciate  properly  the  pleasures  of  human 
life.  But,  please  mark  this,  you  have  quite 
ignored  the  most  important  thing  of  all — the 
vast  change  that  all  these  pleasures  are 
undergoing,  that  the  whole  aspect  of  life  is 
undergoing,  beneath  the  touch  of  modern 
thought  and  modern  philosophy ;  nay — and 
this  indeed  is  tht  special  point  I  want  to  lay 
stress  upon— Mr.  Luke  just  now  even  used 
those  obsolete  and  misleading  words,  righte- 
ousness and  morality,  soiled  by  so  many 
unworthy    associations.       By    the    way,'    he 


2l6  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

exclaimed,  stopping  suddenly  and  looking 
round  him,  '  I  suppose  I  may  speak  the  truth 
freely,  as  I  know  well  enough  that  all  to 
whom  my  vaticinations  would  be  unwelcome 
are  sure  to  mistake  me  for  a  Cassandra,' 

*  Mistake  him  for  a  what  ? '  said  Lady 
Ambrose,  in  a  loud  undertone. 

'  She  was  a  beautiful  young  unfortunate,' 
whispered  Mrs.  Sinclair  confidentially,  '  who 
was  betrayed  by  the  god  Apollo.' 

Mr.  Saunders  was  conscious  he  had 
raised  a  smile.  He  considered  it  a  full 
licence  to  proceed. 

*  Well,'  he  said,  *  as  Miss  Merton  re- 
marked a  moment  ago,  some  definite  faith  is 
needed  by  the  world  ;  and,  as  I  now  delibe- 
rately declare,  some  definite  faith  it  will  have 
— some  one  definite  faith  that  will  tolerate 
no  dissent  from  it ;  and  it  will  have  this  be- 
fore fifty  years  are  over.' 

Everyone  stared  at  Mr.  Saunders,  every- 
one except  Mr.  Luke,  who  simply  smiled  at 
the  sky,  and  said,  with  an  air  of  suppressed 
pleasantry,  '  I  had  imagined  that  our  young 
friend's  motto  \\2lS  freedom! 

Mr.  Saunders  was  nettled  at  this  beyond 
description.  With  a  vindictive  quickness  he 
fixed  his  eyes  upon  Mr.  Luke. 

'  Sight  is  free,'  he  said,  uttering  his  words 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  III.  217 

very  slowly,  as  if  each  one  were  a  dagger  in 
itself,  and  could  give  Mr.  Luke  a  separate 
smart ;  '  sight  is  free,'  he  said,  '  and  yet  the 
sight  of  all  healthy  men,  I  conceive,  is  in 
agreement.  It  differs,  I  admit,  when  our 
eyes  are  dim  with  tears  of  hysterical  feel- 
ing ;  or  when  we  are  drunk  ;  or  when  we 
are  fighting — in  this  last  case,  Mr.  Luke,  I 
am  told  we  are  often  visited  with  illumina- 
tions of  a  truly  celestial  radiance — but  it  is 
surely  not  such  exceptional  vision  as  this 
that  you  praise  as  free.  And  it  is  just  the 
same,'  said  Mr.  Saunders  triumphantly,  'with 
the  mind.  The  minds  of  men  will  never 
have  been  so  free  as  on  that  not-distant  day 
when  they  shall  all  agree.  And  what  will 
that  agreement  result  in  ?  Why,  in  the  utter 
banishment,  the  utter  destruction — I  know 
no  word  strong  enough  to  express  my  mean- 
ing— of  all  mystery  and  of  all  mysticism, 
and  consequently  of  that  supposed  inscrut- 
able difference  between  riofht  and  wrongf, 
which  has  been  made,  in  the  hands  of  the 
priests,  one  of  the  most  hideous  engines  of 
terror  that  were  ever  employed  to  degrade  and 
crush  mankind.  Right  and  wrong,  indeed ! 
Righteousness  and  morality !  There  is 
something  insidious  in  their  very  sound. 
No  —  "  useful,"    "  healthful,"    "  serviceable," 


2i8  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

"  pleasant " — these  will  be  the  words  of  the 
future.  Emancipated  man  will  know  no 
wrong,  save  unhealthiness  and  unpleasant- 
ness. That  most  treacherous  handmaid  of 
priestcraft,  poetry,  which,  professing  to 
heighten  the  lights  of  life,  did,  in  reality, 
only  deepen  its  shadows,  will  delude  him  no 
lonQ^er — she  will  be  ofone — oone  for  ever. 
Science,  the  liberator  of  humanity,  will  have 
cast  its  light  upon  her  ;  and  the  lying  vision 
will  vanish.  But  why  do  I  talk  of  poetry  ? 
Is  not  that,  and  every  other  evil — reverence, 
faith,  mysticism,  humility,  and  all  the  unclean 
company — comprised  in  this  one  word, 
Religion  ?  Well,  let  religion — the  ancicn 
regime  of  the  world — retire,  as  it  has  done, 
to  its  Versailles,  and  fence  itself  round  for 
a  little  with  its  mercenar)-  soldiers !  The 
Paris  of  the  world  is,  at  any  rate,  left  free — 
and  there  the  Revolution  of  Humanity  is 
begun.  Science  leads  it,  and  in  another 
fifty  years  there  will  not  be  another  religion 
left.  Surely  most  here  must  know  this,' 
continued  Mr.  Saunders,  '  although  they  may 
perhaps  forget  it  sometimes.  But  the  fact 
is  notorious,  and  I  really  think ' 

'Sir!' 

Where  did  that  sudden,  solemn  exclama- 
tion come  from — that  single  syllable  at  which 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  III.  219 

the  music  of  Mr.  Saunders's  voice,  '  like  a 
fountain's  sickening  pulse,'  retired  in  a 
moment.  Who  had  spoken }  The  sound 
surprised  everybody.  It  was  Mr.  Stockton 
— Mr.  Stockton,  with  a  face  all  aglow  with 
feeling,  beneath  his  picturesque  wide-awake 
hat,  and  holding  in  his  hand  a  white  pocket- 
handkerchief  bordered  with  pale  blue. 

'  Perhaps,'  he  continued,  looking  slowly 
round  him,  'I,  as  a  man  of  science,  who 
have  been  a  patient  apprentice  at  my  work 
for  six-and-twenty  years,  may  be  allowed  to 
give  some  opinion  on  this  matter.  Destroy 
religion  !  Destroy  poetry  ! '  he  exclaimed, 
in  his  rich,  bell-like  voice,  that  was  now 
resonant  with  an  indignant  melancholy. 
'  Will  science  destroy  either  of  these 
precious  and  exquisite  heritages  of  the 
human  race  ?  Will  it  extinguish  one  pro- 
found, one  ennobling,  one  devout  feeling? 
Will  it  blight  that  rich  culture  on  which  the 
present  age  so  justly  prides  itself.'*  I  have 
followed  science  for  six-and-twenty  years, 
I  speak  therefore  from  experience ;  and  I 
boldly  answer  "  No."  How  indeed  should 
it  .'*  I  know,  I  deplore,  and  I  trust  also 
forgive,  the  common  notion  that  it  does. 
But  how  can  that  notion  have  arisen  ? 
That   is  what   puzzles  me.     Is    not   science 


220  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

essentially  religious,  essentially  poetical — nay, 
does  it  not  deepen  quite  boundlessly  the 
religion  and  poetry  already  existing  in  the 
world,  and  fuse  the  two  together,  as  they 
were  never  fused  before  ?  Does  it  narrow 
our  notions  of  life's  wonder  and  dignity  to 
peer  into  the  abyss  of  being,  and  learn 
something  of  the  marvellous  laws  of  things — 
to  discover  the  same  mysterious  Something 
in  a  snow-flake,  in  the  scent  of  a  rose,  in  the 
"  topmost  star  of  unascended  heaven,"  and 
in  some  prayer  or  aspiration  in  the  soul  of 
man  ?  True  it  is  that  this  wondrous  All  is 
Matter,  and  that  all  matter  is  atoms  in  its 
last  analysis.  No  idle  metaphysics  have 
clouded  my  brain,  so  I  have  been  able  to  see 
these  things  clearly ' 

'  Yes,  yes,  yes,'  cried  Mr,  Saunders, 
recovering  himself,  his  voice  tremulous  with 
excitement,  '  I  know  all  that.  I  know  that  in 
their  last  analysis  a  pig  and  a  martyr,  a  prayer 
and  a  beef-steak,  are  just  the  same — atoms 
and  atomic  movement.  We,  the  younger 
generation  of  thinkers,  accept  all  the  premisses 
you  give  us  without  a  moment's  question. 
We  only  reason  boldly  and  honestly  on  them, 
and  I  defy  you  to  prove — Mr.  Stockton,  sir, 
if  you  will  only  listen  to  me ' 

But    there    was    little    chance    of    that. 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  III.  221 

Interrupted  only  for  a  moment,  and  whilst 
Mr.  Saunders  was  yet  speaking,  Mr.  Stock- 
ton's eloquence  swept  on. 

'  Consider  ourselves,'  he  said,  '  consider 
the  race  of  men,  and  note  the  truly  celestial 
light  that  science  throws  on  that.  We  have 
ascended,'  said  Mr,  Stockton;  'noble  thought ! 
We  have  not  descended.  We  are  rising; 
towards  heaven,  we  have  not  fallen  from  it. 
Yes — we,  with  attributes  so  like  an  angel's, 
with  understanding  so  like  a  God's — to  this 
height  we  have  already  risen.  Who  knows 
what  future  may  not  be  in  store  for  us  ? 
And  then,  on  the  other  hand,  when  the  awe- 
struck eye  gazes,  guided  by  science,  through 
the  "  dark  backward  and  abysm  of  time,"  and 
sees  that  all  that  is  has  unfolded  itself,  un- 
moved and  unbidden,  (astounding  thought !) 
from  a  brainless,  senseless,  lifeless  gas — the 
cosmic  vapour,  as  we  call  it — and  that  it  may, 
for  aught  we  know,  one  day  return  to  it — I 
say,  when  we  realise,  when  we  truly  make 
our  own,  this  stupendous  truth,  must  not 
our  feelings,'  said  Mr.  Stockton,  letting  his 
eyes  rest  on  Miss  Merton's  with  an  appealing 
melancholy — '  our  feelings  at  such  moments 
be  religious  ?     Are  they  not  Religion  ? ' 

'  But,'  said  Miss  Merton,  '  there  is  nothing 


222  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

religious  in  a  gas.  I  don't  see  how  anything 
rehgious  can  come  out  of  it.' 

'  Perfectly  right ! '  chuckled  Mr.  Saunders, 
faintly  clapping  his  hands.  '  Nothing  can 
come  out  of  the  sack  but  what's  in  it.  Miss 
Merton's  perfectly  right.' 

'Ah,  Miss  Merton,'  Mr.  Stockton  con- 
tinued, *  don't  be  frightened  by  the  mere 
sound  of  the  word  matter.  For  who  knows 
what  matter  is' — ('Then,  why  talk  about 
it?'  shrilled  Mr.  Saunders,  unheeded) — 'that 
great  Alpha  and  Omega  of  the  Universe  ?  ' 
Mr.  Stockton  went  on.  '  And  don't  wrong 
me  by  thinking  that  I  "  palter  with  you  in  a 
double  sense,"  and  that  I  am  not  using  the 
word  religion  in  its  truest,  its  profoundest 
signification.  Do  you  think.  Miss  Merton, 
for  instance,  that  I  cannot  feel  with  you, 
when,  stirred  to  your  inmost  soul  by  some 
strain  of  Mozart  or  Beethoven,  you  kneel 
before  your  sacrificial  altar,  whilst  the 
acolyte  exalts  the  Host,  and  murmur  with 
bowed  head  your  litany  to  your  beautiful 
Virgin  ?  I  say  advisedly.  Miss  Merton, 
that  I,  as  a  man  of  science,  can  appreciate, 
and  to  a  great  extent  share,  your  adoring — 
your  adorable  frame  of  mind.' 

Mr.  Stockton  paused.  His  acquaintance 
with  Catholic  ritual,  and  the  fact  of  thus  find- 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  III.  223 

ing  herself  elected,  without  any  merit  of  her 
own,  as  the  special  object  of  so  great  a  man's 
eloquence,  produced  in  Miss  Merton  an  un- 
fortunate sense  of  absurdity,  and  in  another 
moment  she  was  conscious  of  nothing  but  a 
most  inappropriate  desire  to  laugh.  She 
compromised  with  her  facial  muscles,  how- 
ever, and  only  gave  a  smile,  which  she  trusted 
would  pass  muster  as  one  of  grave  enquiry. 
Mr.  Stockton  thought  that  it  was  so,  and 
went  on  ;  but,  unknown  to  himself,  he  felt  all 
the  while  that  it  was  not  so,  and  his  enthusi- 
asm, he  could  not  tell  why,  became  somewhat 
more  polemical. 

'  Does  science,  then,'  he  proceeded,  '  rob 
us  of  one  iota  of  religious  feeling,  or  de- 
grade our  notions  of  life's  measureless 
solemnity  ?  Nay,  it  is  rather  the  flippant 
conceptions  of  theology  that  would  do  that, 
by  connecting  everything  with  an  eternal 
Personality — a  personality  so  degraded  as  to 
have  some  connection  Avith  ourselves.  The 
prayer  of  the  theologian,  "  cabined,  cribbed, 
confined  "  in  spoken  words,  is  directed  to  a 
Being  that  Science  can  make  no  room  for, 
and  would  not  want,  if  she  could.  The 
prayer  of  the  man  of  science,  for  the  most 
part  of  the  silent  sort,  is  directed  whither  } 
demands   what  ?     He    is    silent    if  you    ask 


224  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

him,  for  his  answer  would  be  beyond  the 
reach  of  words.  Even  to  hint  at  its  nature 
he  would  feel  were  a  profanity.' 

'  Do  you  know,  Mr.  Stockton,'  said  Miss 
Merton,  this  time  with  a  polite  meekness, 
'  all  this  rather  bewilders  me.' 

'And  so  it  does  me,'  said  Mr.  Stockton, 
much  pleased  with  Miss  Merton's  manner  ; 
'  and  this  august  bewilderment,  which  gives 
fulness  and  tone  to  our  existence,  but  which 
we  can  neither  analyse  nor  comprehend — to 
me  comes  in  one  shape,  to  you  in  another,  and 
is — relieion.  In  the  name,  then,  of  all  orenuine 
science,  and  of  all  serious  scientific  men,  let 
man  keep,  I  say,'  said  Mr.  Stockton,  looking 
round  him,  '  this  precious  and  ennobling 
heritage — let  him  keep  it  and  shape  it  ever 
anew,  to  meet  his  ever-changing  and  deepen- 
ing needs.  In  viy  dream  of  the  future  I  see 
religions  not  diminished,  but  multiplied, 
growing  more  and  more  richly  diverse,  as 
they  sink  deeper  into  individual  souls. 
Surely,  science,  then,  is  not  come  to  destroy 
the  past,  but  to  fulfil  it — and  I  confess  I  can 
myself  see  no  better  way  of  discovering  what 
we  desire  in  the  future  than  by  the  charming 
analysis  Mr.  Laurence  has  been  giving  us  of 
what  we  most  admire  in  the  present' 

'  See,'  said  Dcmald  Gordon  softly,    '  here 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  III,  225 

is  science  on  the  one  side  offering  us  all  re- 
ligions, and  on  the  other  none.' 

'  Heigho  ! '  sighed  Mr.  Luke,  very  loud  ; 
*  let  us  agree  about  conditct  first,  and  quarrel 
about  theology  afterwards.' 

*  Precisely,'  resumed  Mr.  Stockton,  to 
Mr.  Luke's  extreme  annoyance — Mr.  Luke 
himself  having  still  much  to  say,  and  consi- 
dering that  Mr.  Stockton  did  but  darken 
counsel  by  interrupting  him — '  Mr.  Luke  is 
perfectly  right'  ('  I  should  like  to  know  how 
you  know  that,'  thought  Mr.  Luke.)  '  Let  us 
agree  about  conduct — morality,  by-the-by,  is 
the  plainer  word — that  is  the  great  thing. 
Let  us  agree  about  the  noble  and  the  beauti- 
ful. Let  us  agree  heroically  to  follow  truth 
— ay,  truth  ;  let  us  follow  that,  I  say,  picking 
our  way  step  by  step,  and  not  look  where  we 
are  gfoinof.  Let  us  follow — what  can  I  add 
to  this  ? — the  incomparable  life  of  the  great 
Founder  of  Christianity.  Yes,  Miss  Merton, 
entertaining  the  views  that  I  do,  I  say  the 
incomparable  life.  Such  is  the  message  of 
science  to  the  world  ;  such  is  the  instinct  of 
culture  when  enriched  and  quickened  by 
science.' 

This  was  literally  taking  the  bread  out  of 
Mr.  Luke'§  mouth.  Not  only  w  as  it  repeat- 
ing what  he  had  said  before,  but  it  was  anti- 

Q 


226  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

cipating,  in  a  formless  undisciplined  way,  the 
very  thing  that  he  was  going  to  say  again. 
And  the  man  who  had  robbed  him  thus  was 
a  mere  Philistine — a  mere  man  of  science, 
who  was  without  even  a  smattering  of  Greek 
or  Hebrew,  and  who  thought  sensori-motor 
nerves  and  spontaneous  generation  more  im- 
portant subjects  than  Marcion's  Gospel  or 
the  Psalms  of  David.  For  once  in  his  life 
Mr.  Luke  was  for  the  moment  completely 
silenced.  Laurence  however  somewhat 
soothed  him,  by  replying  to  him,  not  to  Mr. 
Stockton, 

'  Yes,  I  believe  I  was  wrong  after  all  ; 
and  that  true  culture  will  really  prevent  us 
from  looking  on  life  as  a  mere  mockery.' 

Mr.  Luke  was  going  to  have  answered  ; 
but,  worse  even  than  Mr.  Stockton's,  Mr. 
Saunders's  hated  accents  now  got  the  start 
of  him. 

'  One  word  more,'  Mr.  Saunders  ex- 
claimed, '  one  plain  word  if  you  will  allow 
me.  All  this  talk  about  Religion,  Poetry, 
Morality,  implies  this — or  it  implies  nothing 
— the  recognition  of  some  elements  of  inscrut- 
able mystery  in  our  lives  and  conduct  ;  and 
to  every  mystery,  to  all  mystery,  science  is 
the  sworn,  the  deadly  foe.  What  she  is 
daily  more  and  more  branding  into  man's  con- 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  III.  227 

sciousness  is,  that  nothing  is  inscrutable  that 
can  practically  concern  man.  Use,  pleasure, 
self-preservation — on  these  everything  de- 
pends ;  on  these  rocks  of  ages  are  all  rules  of 
conduct  founded  :  and  now  that  we  have  dug 
down  to  these  foundations,  what  an  entirely 
changed  fabric  of  life  shall  we  build  upon 
them.  Right  and  wrong,  I  again  say,  are 
entirely  misleading  terms ;  and  the  supersti- 
tion that  sees  an  unfathomable  gulf  yawning 
between  them  is  the  great  bar  to  all  healthful 
progress.' 

'  And  I  say,  on  the  contrary,'  said 
Laurence,  replying  very  suavely  to  Mr. 
Saunders's  vehemence,  '  that  it  is  on  the 
recognition  of  this  mysterious  and  unfathom- 
able gulf  that  the  whole  of  the  higher  plea- 
sures of  life  depend — and  the  higher  vicious 
pleasures  as  much  as,  if  not  more  than,  the 
virtuous.' 

Lady  Ambrose  started  at  this. 

'  /  am  not  vicious,'  said  Mr.  Saunders 
snappishly.  '  When  I  call  pleasure  the  one 
criterion  of  action,  I  am  thinking  of  very 
different  pleasures  from  what  you  think  I 
mean.' 

'  What  is  Mr.  Saunders's  notion  of  the 
most  passionate  pleasure  ?'  said  Mrs.  Sinclair 
bewitchingly. 

Q2 


228  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC^ 

'  I  agree  with  my  great  forerunner  Hobbes/ 
said  Mr,  Saunders,  '  that  the  strongest  of  all 
pleasures  are  those  arising  from  the  gratifica- 
tion of  curiosity  ;  and  he  is  the  real  ethical 
philosopher  who  subordinates  all  other  appe- 
tites to  this,  like  Bacon,  who  lost  his  life 
through  pursuing  a  scientific  experiment,  or ' 
— he  said  pausing  to  think  of  another  ex- 
ample— 

'  Like  Bluebeard's  wives  ? '  enquired  Mrs. 
Sinclair  naively.  '  I'm  afraid  I  never  give 
my  husband  his  highest  pleasure  ;  for  I  never 
let  him,'  she  added  in  a  regretful  whisper, 
'  open  my  letters,  although  I  read  all  his. 
But,  Mr.  Saunders,'  she  said,  '  if  you  are  so 
fond  of  curiosity,  you  must  have  some 
mystery  to  excite  it.' 

'  Yes,'  said  Mr.  Saunders,  *  but  mystery  Is 
a  fox  for  us  to  hunt  and  shoot ;  not  a  God  to 
hunt  and  shoot  us.' 

'  Fancy,'  exclaimed  Lady  Ambrose  in 
horror,  '  shooting  a  fox !  what  sacrilege  ! ' 

This  remark,  so  entirely  spontaneous,  and 
so  entirely  unexpected,  produced  a  general 
laugh,  in  which  all  joined  but  Mr.  Saunders 
himself,  and  Mr.  Herbert. 

'  Well,'  said  Laurence  at  length,  when  the 
chorus  had  subsided,  '  may  I  read  a  certain 
letter    of   my    uncle's    to    myself,    which    is 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  III.  229 

printed  in  this  very  book  I  have  here  ?  It 
was  running  in  my  mind  just  now,  and  is 
about  the  very  matter  we  were  speaking  of — 
the  connection  of  religions,  of  Christian 
rrioraHty,  with  all  the  higher  pleasures  of  life.' 

'  Very  good,'  said  Mr.  Saunders,  '  Read 
what  you  please.  I  can  only  say  that  I  have 
at  this  moment  in  my  portmanteau  an 
analysis  I  have  made  of  all  the  Christian 
moral  sentiments,  in  which  I  trace  every  one 
of  them  to  such  disgusting  or  pajtry  origins 
as  shall  at  once  rob  them  of  all  their  pestilent 
prestige.  I  begin  with  the  main  root,  the 
great  first  parent  of  all  these  evils,  the  con- 
ception of  God,  which  I  show  may  have 
arisen  in  seventy-three  different  ways,  each 
one  more  commonplace  than  the  other.  By- 
and-by,  if  you  will  not  fear  to  confront  the 
document,  I  will  show  it  to  you.' 

Mr.  Luke  meanwhile  had  seen  his  way  to 
bringing  Mr.  Stockton's  true  ignorance  home 
to  him,  and  had  been  regretting  to  him,  in 
tones  of  insidious  confidence,  that  hardly 
enough  stress  had  been  laid  just  now  on  the 
necessity  of  really  wide  reading — *  an  inti- 
macy,' said  Mr.  Luke,  '  with  the  great  litera- 
tures of  the  world— -a  knowledge  and  com- 
parison of  the  best  things  that  have  been  said 
and  thought,  in  all  the  various  ages,  on  the 


230  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

great  questions  of  life,  without  which,'  he 
added,  '  as  you  and  I  know,  that  discrimina- 
tion between  ricjht  and  wronsf  that  we  were 
speaking  of  just  now,  can  never  be  anything 
more  than  a  make-beheve.'  Nor  chd  Mr. 
Luke  seem  at  all  aware,  as  he  was  thus  pro- 
ceeding, that  Laurence  had  found  his  place, 
and  had  already  begun  to  read,  as  follows  : 

'  As  I  grozu  old,  my  dear  Otho,  I  am 
coming  to  think  over  7)iany  things  that  I  have 
hitherto  thought  too  little  about,  and,  amongst 
others,  the  great  mystery  of  Christianity! 

At  this  point,  however,  Laurence  and  Mr. 
Luke  were  both  interrupted  by  an  entirely 
unforeseen  event. 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  IV.  231 


CHAPTER    IV. 

[AURENCE  had  just  got  to  the  end 
of  the  first  sentence,  and  Mr.  Luke 
at  the  same  time  was  just  reminding 
Mr.  Stockton  with  some  unction 
how  impossible  it  was  for  us  to  value  properly 
that  curious  mixture  of  trumpery  and  elevation, 
the  'Apocalypse'  of  John,  unless  we  compared 
it  with  a  very  kindred  work,  the  '  Pastor '  of 
Hernias,  when  a  servant  startled  Laurence 
by  announcing  in  his  ear  the  arrival  of  the 
vicar  of  the  parish. 

Everyone  in  dismay  looked  ;  and  there, 
standing  a  pace  away  in  the  background,  the 
stranger  was.  He  was  an  old  man,  very 
tall  and  spare,  with  an  ascetic  aspect,  but 
with  a  carriage  dignified  though  slightly 
stooping,  and  with  severe,  piercing  eyes. 
The  sudden  embarrassment,  however,  which 
his  apparition  seemed  to  cause  the  party  was 
relieved  somewhat  by  Laurence's  taking  him 
aside  as  if  for  some  private  conversation,  and 
also  by  another  arrival  of  a  far  more  genial 


232  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

nature — that  of  servants  with  tea,  piles  of 
strawberries,  iced  coffee,  and  champagne  cup. 
Mr.  Rose  at  once  bought  himself  golden 
opinions  of  Lady  Grace  by  helping  her  page, 
a  pretty  boy  with  light  curling  hair,  to  arrange 
some  tumblers  on  the  grass.  Mr.  Stockton 
felt  his  spirits  suddenly  rise,  and  began 
asking  Lady  Violet  what  she  thought  of  their 
new  Republic  as  far  as  they  had  got  with 
it. 

'  I  don't  know,'  she  answered   petulantly. 

*  As  far  as  I  can  see,  you  want  everyone  to 
read  a  great  many  books  and  to  have  only 
one  opinion.  For  my  part,  I  hate  people 
who  do  the  one,  and  a  society  that  does  the 
other.' 

'  What  a  charming  girl  Lady  Violet  is  ! ' 
said  Mr.  Stockton  to  Lady  Grace,  as  he 
stood  by  the  tea  table.  *  StLch  penetration  ! 
such  vivacity  !  such  originality  ! ' 

'  What  beautiful  sermons  he  does  preach, 
to  be  sure  ! '  murmured  Lady  Ambrose. 

'  Who  ?    Who  ? '  enquired  several  voices. 

'Why,  Dr.  Seydon,'  said  Lady  Ambrose. 

*  Don't  you  know  him  ?  Have  you  never 
heard  him  in  London — the  gentleman  with 
Mr.  Laurence  ?  See,  he  is  coming  back  again 
to  have  some  tea.' 

It  was  indeed  but  too  true.     Mr.  Luke's 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  IV.  233 

face  in  especial  grew  very  blank.  Mr. 
Saunders  clenched  his  fist — a  small  one. 

Dr.  Seydon's  face,  on  the  contrary,  wore 
what  for  it  was  a  really  gracious  smile.  He 
was  mindful  of  how  upon  his  arrival  he  had 
overheard  the  words  '  Apocalypse '  and 
*  mystery  of  Christianity.' 

As  Laurence  introduced  him  into  the 
circle  Lady  Ambrose  at  once  claimed  ac- 
quaintance with  him,  and  made  room  for  him 
at  her  side. 

'  I  am  sorry,'  he  said,  looking  round  him 
with  a  singularly  dignified,  almost  con- 
descending courteousness,  '  to  disturb  in  this 
way  your  Sunday's  reading.  But  I  can  but 
stay  a  few  moments.  I  shall  not  interrupt 
you  long.' 

'  We  have  been  talking  a  good  deal,'  said 
Laurence,  '  about  the  signs  of  the  times.' 

'  And,'  said  Lady  Ambrose  eagerly,  feel- 
ing herself  near  a  friend,  '  about  all  this 
wicked  infidelity  and  irreligion  that  is  so  much 
about  in  the  world  now.' 

'Ah,  yes,'  said  Dr.  Seydon  slowly,  and 
with  a  sudden  frown,  '  it  is  true,  unhappily, 
that  there  is,  or  has  been,  much  of  that  in  our 
century.  But  what  remains  is  confined,  I 
imagine  (and  that  is  sad  enough,  God  knows) 
to   the  half  educated  artisans   in    our  large 


234  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

towns,  whom  the  Church  in  former  years, 
alas !  relaxed  her  hold  on.  For  I  fear  I 
cannot  deny  that  we,  in  this  matter,  are  not 
wholly  guiltless.  The  Church,  we  may 
depend  upon  it,  has  much  to  answer  for.' 

'  Perfectly  true,  my  dear  sir !  perfectly 
true,'  exclaimed  Mr.  Luke,  who  could  never 
resist  assenting  to  this  sentiment. 

Dr.  Se^xlon  darted  a  quick  glance  at  Mr. 
Luke,  as  if  he  were  anything  but  pleased  at 
finding  himself  so  readily  agreed  with. 

'But,'  he  went  on,  'matters  are  fast  as- 
suming a  more  satisfactory  appearance ;  and 
the  great  advance  made  in  true  education, 
and  the  liberal  spirit  that  this  brings  with  it, 
cannot  fail  to  lead  to  that  great  change  in 
our  position  that  we  so  much  desiderate.' 

'Quite  so,'  said  Mr.  Luke.  'The  true 
reading  of  ecclesiastical  history ' 

'  Ah  ! '  exclaimed  Dr.  Seydon,  holding  up 
his  forefinger,  '  exactly  so.  You  have  hit 
upon  the  right  thing  there.'  ('  Good  gracious ! ' 
thought  Mr.  Luke,  astounded  at  this  patron- 
ising compliment,  '  I  should  think  I  had.') 
*  Could  we  but  get  both  the  parties,'  Dr. 
Seydon  went  on,  addressing  Mr.  Luke  across 
Lady  Ambrose,  'to  understand  fairly  the 
history  of  the  important  era,  the  matter 
would,  I  think,  be  as  good  as  settled.     You 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  IV.  235 

see,'  he  said,  turning  to  Lady  Ambrose,  '  if 
the  Easterns  will  merely  face  steadily  the 
pregnant  fact  that  Michael  Cerularius,  in  his 
first  letter  to  Leo  IX.,  in  1053,  took  abso- 
lutely no  exception  to  any  one  point  in 
Western  doctrine,  but  simply  to  certain  se- 
condary points  of  discipline,  they  will  see  that 
the  gulf  that  separates  us  is  very  slight  when 
viewed  by  the  clearer  light  of  modern 
thought.  I  think,'  he  added,  '  that  I  saw 
Lady  Ambrose's  name  amongst  the  sub- 
scribers to  the  Eastern  Church  Union  Asso- 
ciation.' 

'  Oh  yes,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  '  certainly. 
I  do  so  wish  that  some  union  could  be 
brought  about.  For  the  Greek  Church,  you 
know,  certainly  have  the  Apostolical  Suc- 
cession ;  and  then,  if  we  were  only  joined  with 
them,  the  Roman  Catholics  could  never  deny 
our  orders — not,'  she  added,  with  a  most 
cordial  smile  to  Dr.  Seydon,  'that  I  don't 
myself  believe  implicitly  in  them,  as  it  is.' 

A  rapid  frown  gathered  itself  on  Dr. 
Seydon's  brow. 

'The  denial  of  them,'  he  said  severely, 
'  hurts  the  Romanists  far  more  than  It  does 
us.  As  to  the  Greeks,  what  I  was  going  to 
say  was  this.  Let  them  just  cast  their  eyes 
back  so  far  as  the  tenth  century,  and  they 


236  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

will  see — and  pray  mark  this,  all  of  you,'  he 
said,  holding  up  his  forefinger,  and  shaking  it 
several  times,  'for  this  is  very  important — I 
say  the  Greeks  will  sec,  unless  they  are  de- 
termined to  close  their  eyes,  that  at  the  time 
of  the  great  rupture  with  the  West,  they  did 
actually  acknowledge  the  entire  soundness  of 
our  confession  of  faith  ;  the  main  point  they 
objected  to,  and  which  they  thought  fit 
ground  then  for  separation,  being  that  the 
Western  Church  did  not  sing  Alleluiah  in 
Lent,  and  that  it  used  in  the  Lord's  Supper 
unleavened  bread,  which,  Nicetas  Pectoratus 
contended  in  an  elaborate  treatise,  was  dead 
bread,  and  could  not  therefore  be  either 
supersubstantial  or  consubstantial  to  us.  It 
has  been  the  fault  of  the  Easterns,  in  fact,  to  be 
ever  over-subtle,  and  to  fall  into  those  excesses 
of  human  wisdom  which  are  foolishness  with 
God.  Isaac  the  Armenian,  for  instance, 
wrote  a  book  to  prove  his  countrymen  in 
heresy  for  twenty-nine  different  reasons,  of 
which  the  two  most  important  are  these — 
that  tJicy  did  not  bloiv  on  baptised  persons^ 
and  that  they  made  their  co?isecrated  oils  of 
rapeseed  and  not  of  olives.  But  two  causes 
seem  to  me  to  be  now  working  together, 
under  God,  to  put  the  Easterns  into  a  more 
becoming   spirit,  and   to   make   them   more 


BOOK  III.    CHAPTER  IV.  237 

heartily  willing  to  join  us.  These  are — I 
have  mentioned  them  in  the  third  volume 
of  my  "History  of  the  Filioque  Clause" — 
first,  that  the  genuine  Greek  blood  is  be- 
coming daily  more  adulterated,  and  the  Greek 
intellect  losing  therefore  its  old  subtlety  ;  and 
secondly,  that  the  political  disturbance  that 
now  seems  imminent  in  the  East,  will  distract 
them  from  abusing  such  subtlety  as  they 
still  possess.  We  shall  therefore  meet  on 
the  broad  ground  of  our  fundamental  agree- 
ments ;  and  once  let  the  moral  influence  of 
the  two  churches,  the  Greek  and  English,  be 
mutually  augmented  by  an  open  union,  in 
another  five  years,  I  imagine,  we  shall  have 
heard  the  last  of  infidelity,  in  England  at 
least,  or  indeed  of  Romanism  either.' 

'  Now,  that's  the  sort  of  man,'  said  Lady 
Ambrose,  as  soon  as  Dr.  Seydon  had 
departed,  '  that  I  should  like  to  have  for  my 
clergyman  in  our  new  Republic' 

'Seydon!'  exclaimed  Mr.  Luke,  'so  that 
is  he,  is  it  ?  I  thought  I  remembered  that 
face  of  his.  Of  course — I  remember  now, 
seeing  that  his  college  had  given  this  living 
to  him.' 

'  It  was  he,'  said  Laurence  to  Miss 
Merton,  'who,  some  years  ago,  prevented 
Dr.  Jenkinson  being  made  a  bishop,  which 


238  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

he  said,  though  it  might  be  a  compliment 
to  learning,  would  be  a  grievous  insult  to 
God.' 

*  And  so,  Lady  Ambrose,'  said  Mr, 
Stockton,  'you  would  like  Dr.  Seydon  for  a 
clergyman  !  Well,  in  our  ideal  society  you 
would  be  able  to  have  any  clergyman  you 
chose — any  religion  you  chose — any  which 
most  satisfied  your  own  conscience.' 

'  Oh,  very  well,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  '  if 
it  would  not  interfere  with  one's  relioion  in 
any  way,  I  think  all  this  culture  and  en- 
lightenment most  delightful.' 

*  It  will  bind  us  to  nothing,'  said  Mr. 
Stockton,  *  except  to  a  recognition  of  noble- 
ness, of  morality,  of  poetry.  What  Mr. 
Laurence  has  offered  to  read  to  us  is  an 
account  of  how  all  of  these  are  bound  up  in 
religion  in  7}iy  sense  of  the  word.' 

'  Come,  Mr.  Laurence,'  said  Lady  Am- 
brose, 'please  go  on.  It  is  wonderful,'  she 
added  in  a  solemn  whisper,  '  how  even  bad 
men,  like  old  Mr.  Laurence,  know  at  heart 
how  it  is  really  best  to  be  good,  and  to 
believe  in  true  relio^ion.' 

^  As  I  grow  old^  my  dear  Otho'  Laurence 
again  began  to  read,  '/  a7n  coming  to  think 
over  many  things  that  I  have  hitherto  thotight 
too  little  about,  and,  amongst  others,  the  great 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  IV.  239 

mystery  of  Christianity.  I  am  coming  to 
see  that,  from  a  too  supeifcial  zvay  of  looking 
at  it,  I  have  done  this  religion  a  gross  in- 
jttstice,  and  have  blindly  failed  to  recognise 
how  vmch  of  all  that  zve  hold  most  precious 
in  life  is  dependent  on  its  severe  and  unbend- 
ing systems  of  theology  and  moi'als.  It  zvill 
perhaps  strike  you  that  it  is  rather  late  in 
the  day  for  me  to  pay  my  ti^ibute  to  these, 
nozv  that  the  zvorld  at  large  is  theoretically 
denying  the  foi^mer  of  them,  and  is  practically 
forgetthig  the  latter.  But  it  is  this  very  fact 
that  indtices  me  to  speak  out — the  grozvhig 
licence  and  the  grozving  scepticism  of  modern 
society.  I  zuish  to  raise  my  voice  against  the 
present  state  of  things,  and  to  zvarn  the  zvorld 
that  if  it  goes  on  much  longer  as  it  is  going 
on  nozv,  it  zvill  soon  have  irremediably  ruined 
all  the  finer  and  more  piquant  flavours  of  life, 
and  that  soon  tliere  zvill  be  actually  nothing 
left  to  give  rational  zest  to  this  poor  pitifil 
existence  of  07irs. 

'  YoiL  knozv  zvhat  an  admirer  I  have 
alzjvays  been,  in  many  zvays,  of  the  ancients, 
and  Iiozju,  hi  many  zvays,  I  think  modern 
civilisation  barbarous  as  compared  zvitk  theirs. ' 
I  have  not  changed  this  opinion.  I  have  only 
come  lately  to  understand  zvhat  it  means. 
The  cliarm  of  ancient  life  lies  mainly  in  its 


240  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

form,     hi  essence,  the  life  open  to  us  is,  as  I 

fully   see   now,    infinitely   superior.     And  to 

what   is    this    superiority   due?     Si^nply    to 

Christianity.     It  came  with  Christiaiiity,  and 

it  ivill  also  go  zuith  it. 

'/  am  not  mad,  Otho.  Listai  to  me  a 
little  longer,  my  boy,  and  you  loill  see  my 
meaning. 

*  To  begin,  then — -jtist  consider  the  one 
matter  of  humour.  Compare  the  ancient  himwiir- 
ists  with  the  modern.  Thhik  for  a  moment 
of  Lucian,  of  Aristophanes,  of  Plant  us,  of 
Petrofiius,  of  Horace ;  then  think  of  Eras- 
vius,  Swift,  Cervantes,  Voltaire,  Sterne. 
Does  not  the  mere  memory  of  the  two  sets  of 
names  bring  home  to  you  what  a  gulf  iu  this 
matter  there  is  between  the  anciejit  world  and 
the  modern  ?  Is  not  the  modern  htuno2ir  aft 
altogether  different  thing  from  the  ajicicnt — 
broader  and  deeper  beyond  compariso7i  or 
measurement  ?  The  htunour  of  the  ancients 
could  raise  a  laugh ;  true — that  is  just  zvhat 
it  could  raise,  and  a  laugh  could  express  all 
the  feelings  raised  by  it.  Think  of  the  in- 
tolerable vulgarity  of  Homers  gods,  zvho 
"  laughed  consumedly  "  at  Vulcan,  as  he  zvaited 
on  them, — why  ?  becatise  he  was  lame.  The 
sense  of  humour  on  Olymp2is  was  about  equal 
to  what  it  zvo2cld  be  nozo  in  a  coiuitry  lawyers 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  IV.  241 

parlour.  Think  of  Horace,  ivJio  saw  in  a 
dull  pun  on  hvo  proper  names,  a  joke  so  ex- 
cellent that  he  wrote  a  whole  satire  iji  honour 
of  it.  It  is  true  that  fuvenal  showed  a 
somewhat  finer  sense,  when  he  said  that  when 
Fortune  zv as  pleased  to  be  facetioiis,  she  made  a 
nouveau  riche  ;  Petroiiius,  perhaps,  was  even 
in  advajice  of  y^tvenal.  Btit  ancient  himtour 
at  its  best  ivas  a  shallow  thing.  It  77ieant 
little.  It  was  like  the  bright  sparkle  07i 
a  brawling  stream,  hardly  ankle- deep.  Btit 
otcr  7nodern  humottr  is  like  the  silent  snake-like 
lights  in  a  still  ivater,  that  go  coiling  down 
into  depths  unfathomable,  as  it  hires  our 
thoughts  onwards  to  the  contemplatio7t  of 
endless  issues.  The  twinkle  in  the  eyes  of  a 
Sterne  or  a  Cervantes  seems  to  hijit  to  us  of 
Eleusinian  mysteries  zvith  a  tritimphant 
sole7nn  treachery ;  a7id  wakes  our  souls,  as 
we  catch  it,  into  a  sudde^i  thrill  of  deliciotis., 
furtive  insight.  Such  humo2ir  as  this  may 
excite  laughter  ;  but  no  latighter  can  ease  our 
feelings  felly — they  also  demand  tears  ;  aiid 
even  tears  are  not  e7iough  for  us.  Of  such 
humour  as  this  the  ancients  had  hardly  a 
notion;  it  differs  fro7)i  theirs  as  the  man 
differs  fro7n  the  baby,  afid  see77is  almost  like  a 
new  se7ise,  peculiar  to  the  moder7i  world. 

'Now,    to   what  is   this   develop7nent    of 

R 


242  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

htimoiir  due — this  new  and  exquisite  source 
of  pleasiwe  ?  Simply,  as  yo7t  ninst  see,  if  you 
look  into  the  ^natter,  to  that  ninch  maligned 
thing,  Christianity,  and  that  marvellons 
system  of  moral  lazus  and  restraints  zvhich, 
althoitgh  accredited  through  imposture,  elabo- 
rated by  barbarism,  and  received  by  credulity, 
has  entirely  changed  the  zvhole  complexion  of 
life.  Think  how  it  has  done  this.  It  has 
slowly  permeated  and  penetrated  all  mans 
inner  existence.  It  has  given  him  new  un- 
earthly aims ;  it  has  given  him  nezv  un- 
earthly standards  by  which  to  measitre 
every  action.  It  has  ctcnningly  associated 
everything  zvith  the  most  awful  or  the  most 
glittering  cojiceptions  zvith  which  the  imagi- 
nation can  scare  or  intoxicate  itself — with 
Hell,  Heaven,  Judgment,  and  so  fo7^th :  and 
thus  there  is  scarcely  a  single  choice  or  refusal 
that  has  been  left  indifferent ,  and  not  more  or 
less  nearly  cojniected  zvith  the  most  stupendotis 
iss?/es.  The  infinitely  bea^itiful,  the  infinitely 
terrible,  the  infinitely  hateful  meet  us  every- 
where. Everything  is  enchanted,  and  seems 
to  be  what  it  is  not.  The  enchantment  quite 
deludes  the  vulgar ;  it  a  little  deludes  the 
zvise ;  but  the  zvise  are  for  ever  in  various 
ways  secretly  ujidoing  the  spell,  and  getting 
glimpses  of  thhigs  as  they  really  are.      What 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  IV.  243 

a  deligJit  these  glimpses  are  to  those  that  get 
them  !  Here  lies  the  sense  0/  humo2cr — in  the 
detectioji  of  tnith  through  revered  and  reign- 
ing falsehood.  Think  of  the  colloquies  of 
Erasmus,  and  his  Laics  Stultitice — there  is  an 
instance  for  you.  Think  of  Don  Quixote — 
there  is  another.  All  its  humour  is  due  to 
Christian  dreams  of  honour,  ditty  and 
chivalry.  Who,  again,  zvould  have  cared  for 
Swift's  showing  7cs  that  man  was  hateful,  if 
Christ  had  not  bewitched  tts  into  thinking  that 
man  zvas  loveable  ?  Gulliver  ozves  its  point  to 
the  Gospels.  Sterne  sees  everything  "  big  with 
infinite  jest!'  But  zvhy  ?  Because  Christi- 
anity has  made  everything  big  also  with  in- 
finite solemnity.  A  possible  moral  mea^iing 
is  secreted  over  the  zuhole  surface  of  life,  like 
the  scented  oil  in  the  cells  on  the  surface  of 
an  orange  skin.  The  Jumiourist  catches  the 
perfume  of  these  volatile  oils,  as  they  are 
crtished  out  and  zvasted  by  oicr  every  action. 

'  Think,  too,  by  the  zvay,  of  the  kindred 
subject  of  wit.  I  zvas  reading  a  play  of  Con- 
greves  yesterday  :  and  this  made  me  reflect 
how  nearly  all  the  brightest  wit  of  the  modern 
zvorld  consists  in  shozving^  us  this  one  thinp — 
that  fidelity  in  marriage  is  ridictUous ;  that 
is,  in  showing  us  what,  but  for  Christianity, 
no   one   zvoiUd  ever  have  doubted.     Such  wit 


244  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

is,  as  it  were,  the  forbidden  kiss  we  give  to 
common  sense,  from  which  an  angry  religion 
has  been  beJit  on  separating  ns. 

'  Think,  too,  of  that  fioiver  of  Christian 
civilisation,  the  inmicndo.  That  is  simply  the 
adroit  saying  under  dijfcnlties  of  zahat,  but 
for  Christianity,  everyone  wonld  have  taken 
for  granted. 

'  Here,  then,  yon  see,  are  the  wit,  the 
innuendo,  the  humour  of  the  world,  all  owing 
their  existence,  or,  at  any  rate,  their  flavour, 
to  Christianity.  And  zvhat  ivottld  life,  zvhat 
would  conversation  be  zuithout  these  ?  Btit  it 
is  not  these  only  that  we  owe  to  the  same 
source.  A II  our  finer  pleastircs  are  indebted 
for  their  chief  taste  to  it  likezuise.  Love  in 
itself ,  for  instance,  is,  as  everyone  knozus  who 
has  felt  it,  the  coarsest  and  most  foolish  of  all 
our  feelings.  Leave  it  free  to  do  zvhat  it 
pleases,  and  zue  soon  cease  to  care  what  it  does. 
But  Christianity,  zvith  a  miraculous  inge- 
nuity, has  confined  and  cramped  it  into  so  gro- 
tesque and  painful  a  posture,  and  set  suck 
vigilant  guardians  to  keep  it  there,  that  any 
retiirn  to  its  natural  freedom  is  a  rapture,  an 
adventure,  and  a  triumph,  zvhich  none  but  the 
wisest  and  most  skilful  can  compass  with 
grace  or  safety,  and  zvhich  zvise  men,  therefore, 
think   zvorth   compassing.     It   is   indeed    the 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  IV.  245 

same  with  all  the  natural  and  true  pleasures 
of  life — poor  tasteless  things  not  tuorth  living 
for,  in  themselves ;  but  they  have  been  so 
hidden  aivay  from  us,  and  have  come  to  be 
i7i  such  bad  odoitr  ivith  the  zvorld,  that  only 
the  wisest — for  zuisdom  is  but  the  detection  of 
falsehood — see  that  they  may  be  taken,  and  have 
the  courage  to  take  the77i ;  and  the  wisdom 
they  are  conscious  of  in  doing  this,  forms  a 
delicioiLS  sauce  piquante — {of  which  humour, 
wit,  and  so  on,  are  some  of  the  flavours^ — to 
these  same  poor  pleasures,  that  can  give  us  a 
real  zest  for  them. 

'  Such  a  life  of  wisdom  is,  of  course,  only 
for  the  few.  The  wise  must  always  be  few,  as 
the  rich  rmist.  The  poor  must  make  fine  food 
for  the  rich  to  eat.  The  fools  must  make  fine 
follies  for  the  zvise  to  detect.  We  cannot  all 
be  happy  in  a  rational  way.  It  is  at  least 
best  that  so7?ie  of  us  should  be.  But  what  I 
want  to  point  out  to  you,  my  boy,  is,  that  if 
society  goes  on  as  it  is  going  on  now,  7iobody 
will  be  able  soon  to  be  rationally  happy  at  all. 
It  is  t7'ue  that  I  do  7iot  now  live  mtich  in 
the  world;  but  I  have  sufficient  ineans  of  see- 
ing the  cotcrse  it  is  taking.  I,  like  Hamlet, 
have  heard  of  its  ''paintings,"  how  it  ''jigs 
and  ambles  and  lisps,  and  nick-names  Gods 
creatures''     I  know  how  fast  all  Christian 


246  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

moral  sentiment  is  silently  dying  out  of  it. 
Indeed,  so  i^apid  do  I  imagine  to  be  the  zuay  in 
which  it  is  losing  all  proper  feeling,  that  I 
should  not  be  surprised  zuere  society  in 
another  five  years,  if  I  am  not  dead  by 
that  time,  to  receive  me  back  again.  Now, 
as  long  as  Christianity  zvas  firmly  fixed 
as  a  faith,  zue  might  amuse  ourselves 
by  offending  against  its  morals  as  much  as 
we  liked ;  for  our  acts  zvere  in  no  danger  of 
losing  their  forbidden  character.  There 
would  always  be  a  persecution.,  tinder  zvhich 
pleasure  might  thrive.  But  nozv,  since  faith 
is  dead,  zue  have  only  the  moral  sentiments 
left  to  lis  ;  and  ifzve  once  get  rid  of  these  by  a 
too  reckless  violation  of  them,  the  zuhole  zuork 
of  Christianity,  which  I  have  been  trying  to 
explain  to  you,  will  be  lindane.  Wit  and 
humour,  love  and  poetry,  zvill  all  alike  have 
left  lis.  Life  zi'ill  have  lost  its  seasonings 
and  its  sauces  :  and  served  up  to  us  au  naturel 
t't  zvill  only  nauseate  us.  Man,  indeed,  zvill 
then  be  only  separated  front  the  animals  by 
his  capacity  for  ennui. 

''  I  had  once  hoped  tJiat  the  middle  classes 
— that  vast  and  useless  body,  zvho  have  neither 
the  skill  that  produces  their  zvealth,  nor  the 
taste  that  can  enjoy  it — might  have  proved 
themselves  at  least  of  some  use,  by  preserving 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  IV.  247 

the  traditions  of  a  sound,  respectable  morality ; 
that  they  might  have  kept  alive  the  nations 
power  of  being  shocked  and  scandalised  at  wit, 
or  grace,  or  freedom.  Bnt  7W  ;  they  too  are 
changed.  With  awkivard  halting  gait  they 
are  zvaddling  in  the  footsteps  of  their  betters, 
and  they  will  soon  have  made  vice  as  vulgar 
as  they  long  ago  made  virtue. 

'  To  me,  of  course,  all  this  ^natters  little. 
Such  flavours  as  life  has,  have  lasted  me  tints 
far ;  nor  zuill  the  zvorld's  growing  blankness 
affect  me.  I  shall  never  look  into  a  woman  s 
eyes  again.  One  of  my  own  is  blind  now, 
and  the  other  is  so  dim  that  I  do7ibt  if  the 
best-paid  bea^Uy  could  contrive  to  look  into  it 
with  7nore  than  an  ironical  tenderness.  All 
this  matters  nothing  to  me.  But  you,  my  boy 
— what  will  be  left  for  you,,  when  I  am  take7i 
away  from  the  evil  that  is  to  come  ?  Voter 
prospect  does  not  seem  to  me  a  cheerful  one. 
But  alas  I  I  can  offer  no  remedy.  I  can  only 
beguile  my  time  by  warning  you.  At  any  rate, 
it  is  always  good  to  think  a  little  about  the 
roots  of  things :  so  I  trust  you  zuill  be  in 
some  zuay  profited  by  these  patruse  verbera 
linguae.' 

When  Laurence  closed  the  book  there 
was  a  silence  of  some  moments,  as  if  no  one 
knew  exactly  how  to  take  what  had  just  been 


248  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

read.  But  at  last  Donald  Gordon  exclaimed, 
in  his  devoutest  of  soft  whispers  :  *  Is  Saul 
also  among  the  prophets  ? '  The  words  acted 
like  a  spell  ;  the  ice  was  broken,  and  Mr. 
Herbert,  who  hitherto  had  hardly  uttered  a 
syllable  the  whole  afternoon,  now  broke  out 
suddenly  in  his  most  emphatic  accents. 

'  Thank  you,  my  dear  Laurence,'  he  ex- 
claimed ;  '  thank  you  much,  indeed.  There 
is  something  in  what  you  have  just  read  us 
that  seems  to  me  quite  precious  and  peculiar. 
Nor  do  I  find  any  such  honesty  in  any  creed 
sung  by  priests  in  churches,  as  I  do  in  this 
sardonic  confession  of  that  great  truth,  which 
the  present  age  as  a  whole  is  resolutely  bent 
upon  forgetting — that  the  grand  knowledge 
for  a  man  to  know  is  the  essential  and  eternal 
difference  between  right  and  wrong,  between 
base  and  noble  ;  that  there  is  a  right  and  a 
noble  to  be  striven  for,  not  for  the  sake  of  its 
consequences,  but  in  spite  of  them  ;  and  that 
it  is  this  fact  alone  which,  under  countless 
forms,  is  the  one  thing  affirmed  in  all  human 
art  and  implied  in  all  serviceable  learning. 
Your  Cervantes  smiles  it  to  you  ;  your  Swift 
curses  it  to  you  ;  your  Bernard  of  Morlaix 
hymns  it  to  you  ;  your  saddened  Shakespeare 
tells  it  to  you  in  every  way.  Strange  indeed 
is  it,  and  mournful,  that  we  see  a  time  when 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  IV.  249 

the  one  truth  that  we  Hve  and  die  by  not 
only  needs  to  be  pointed  out  to  us,  but  as- 
serted passionately  in  the  teeth  of  those  whom 
we  have  elected  as  our  wisest  teachers.'  Mr. 
Saunders  at  once  took  this  to  be  a  special 
allusion  to  himself,  and  his  face  involuntarily 
began  to  array  itself  in  a  smile  of  triumph. 

*  However,'  Mr.  Herbert  went  on  benignantly, 

*  you  have  truly  gone  the  right  way  to  work 
in  constructing  an  ideal  society,  if  you  make 
it  recognise  this  before  all  things,  and  see  how 
witness  is  borne  to  it  by  every  pleasure  and 
every  interest  of  life.' 

'  Ah,  yes,'  exclaimed  Mr.  Stockton,  *  it  is 
just  this  noble  discrimination  between  right 
and  wrong,  Mr.  Herbert,  that  modern  en- 
lightenment will  so  preeminently  encourage 
and  foster.  Morality  is  quite  indispensable  to 
any  dream  of  the  future.  And  as  to  religion 
— the  motto  of  the  future  is  freedom — holy 
awful,  individual  freedom.  We  shall  each  be 
free  to  choose  or  evolve  the  religion  most 
profoundly  suited  to  us.' 

'  Well,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  '  as  long  as  I 
may  keep  my  own  religion,  I  shall  be  quite 
satisfied ;  and  about  other  people,  I  really 
don't  think  I'm  bigoted — not  as  long,  you 
know,  as  they  belong  to  some  church.  But 
religion  is  the  thing  I  want.     Of  course  we 


250  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

must  have  morality.  Mustn't  we  ? '  she 
added,  with  a  half-puzzled  expression,  turning 
to  Lady  Grace. 

*  Must ! '  sighed  Mrs.  Sinclair.  '  It's  very 
easy  to  say  ftitcsL' 

'  Of  course  we  must,'  said  Lady  Grace 
cheerfully.  '  My  dear,'  she  went  on,  with  a 
little  kindly  laugh  towards  Mr.  Saunders,  '  /le 
doesn't  really  doubt  it' 

Mr.  Saunders  sprang  to  his  feet  as  if  an 
adder  had  stuna  him. 

'  What ! '  he  exclaimed,  standing  in  the 
centre  of  the  group,  and  looking  round  him, 
*  and  do  I  not  really  doubt  that  the  degrading 
practice  of  prayer,  the  fetish-worship  of  celi- 
bacy, of  mortification,  and  so  forth — do  I  not 
doubt  that  the  foul  faith  in  a  future  life,  the 
grotesque  conceptions  of  the  theological  vir- 
tues, and  that  preposterous  idol  of  the  market- 
place, the  sanctity  of  marriage, — do  you  think 
I  do  not  really  doubt  that  we  must  retain 
these  ?  Do  you  think,  on  the  contrary,  I  do 
not  know  that  they  are  already  doomed  ? 
However,'  here  Mr.  Saunders  paused  sud- 
denly and  again  sat  down  on  the  grass,  '  there 
is  no  need  for  me  at  this  moment  to  destroy 
any  cherished  illusions  ;  though  I  shall  be 
happy  to  show  my  analysis  of  them  that  I 
spoke  about  just  now  to  anyone  who  is   not 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  IV.  251 

afraid  to  inspect  it.  I  hear  much  said  about 
tolerance,  as  a  characteristic  of  your  society. 
All  I  ask  is,  that  you  have  the  courage  to 
extend  your  tolerance  to  me.  Your  new 
Republic  may  be  full  of  illusions  then. 
The  great  labour  of  destroying  them  will  be 
positively  delicious  to  me.' 

'  Well,'  said  Mr.  Stockton,  with  a  mixture 
of  deference  and  patronage,  *  and  what  does 
Miss  Merton  think  ?  ' 

'  Oh,'  said  Miss  Merton  with  a  slow 
smile,  '  I  am  all  in  favour  of  toleration.  I 
think  that  what  I  consider  truth  is  quite  good 
enough  to  stand  on  its  own  merits,  if  unpre- 
judiced eyes  can  only  be  got  to  see  them. 
And  I  honestly  do  think,  that  with  really 
high-breeding,  and  with  what  we  apparently 
mean  by  culture,  we  should  have  at  least  one 
part  of  the  world  as  good  as  we  could  wish 
it.  But  yet — '  she  added,  hesitating  a  little, 
'  we  have  surely  settled  only  half  the  question 
yet.  We  have  said  a  good  deal  about  this 
wide  and  discerning  taste  that  is  to  guide  us, 
We  have  not  said  much  yet  about  the  parti- 
cular things — the  occupations,  the  duties,  the 
pleasures,  that  it  will  lead  us  to  choose.' 

'  No,'  began  Mr.  Rose,  '  I  should  like 
myself  very  much  to  say  something  as  to 
that — as  to  the  new  pleasures  that  modern 
culture  has  made  possible  for  us.' 


252  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

*  Suppose — '  said  Lady  Ambrose  with  one 
of  her  most  beaming  smiles,  as  she  pushed  her 
hat  away  over  the  back  of  her  head,  '  suppose 
we  talk  of  this  by-and-by — at  dinner,  or  in 
the  evening.  Let  us  just  enjoy  a  little  now. 
The  air  now  is  so  truly  delicious.  It  seems 
quite  like  a  sin,  doesn't  it,  to  think  of  going  in 
to  dinner  by-and-by.' 

A  happy  thought  struck  Lady  Grace. 

'  Suppose  we  have  dinner  out  of  doors, 
Otho,'  she  said,  *  in  the  pavilion  with  the 
roses  round  it  that  you  used  to  call  the 
summer  diningf-room.' 

This  JDroposal  was  received  with  what 
was  little  short  of  rapture.  '  That  really 
would  be  too  delightful ! '  exclaimed  Lady 
Ambrose.  '  And  what  place  could  sound 
more  perfect  for  us  to  finish  our  new 
Republic  in  ! '     It  was  arranged  accordingly. 

'  And  now,'  exclaimed  Lady  Ambrose  to 
Laurence  confidentially,  as  the  conversation 
ceased  to  be  general,  '  I  want  you  to  let  me 
have  a  look  at  that  book  of  your  uncle's.  I 
have  often  heard  it  spoken  about.  Lord 
Heartpool  had  a  copy,  which  he  showed  my 
poor  father  in  Paris.  Come,  Mr.  Laurence, 
you  need  not  hold  it  back.  I'm  sure  there's 
nothing  in  it  that  would  do  me  any  harm.' 

'  Well — no,'  said  Laurence  ;  '  in  this 
volume  I  don't  think  there  is.' 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  IV.  253 

*  Because  what  you  read  just  now,'  said 
Lady  Ambrose,  '  was  all  really  in  favour  of 
goodness,  though  it  is  true  I  didn't  quite  like 
the  tone  of  some  of  it.' 

'  What,'  interposed  Mr.  Rose,  '  is  there  an- 
other volume  .'*  I  should  much  like  to  see  that.' 

'  I  declare,  Mr.  Laurence,'  said  Lady 
Ambrose,  who  had  now  got  the  book  in  her 
hand,  '  here's  something  really  quite  pretty — 
at  least,  I've  only  got  as  far  as  the  first  verse 
yet.  It's  a  little  poem  called  "  To  the  Wife 
of  an  old  Schoolfelloiv!' ' 

*  Read  it  out  to  us — do,'  said  Laurence, 
with  a  soft  smile.  '  It  will  illustrate  very 
well  the  letter  we  had  just  now.' 

'  Do  you  know,  I  really  think  I  might 
manage  this,' she  said,  'although  I'm  not  in 
the  least  by  way  of  being  a  reader  out. 
Listen,  then,  and  please  don't  laugh  at  me.' 

Let  others  seek  for  wisdouh  way 

In  modern  science^  modern  wit, — 
/  turn  to  love,  for  all  that  these, 

These  two  can  teach,  is  taught  by  it. 

Yes,  all.     In  that  first  hour  we  met 
A?id  smiled  and  spoke  so  soft  and  long,  love, 

Did  wisdom  dawn  ;  and  I  began 

To  disbelieve  in  right  and  w?'ong,  love. 

Then,  as  love's  gosfel  clearer  grew, 
And  I  each  day  your  doorstep  trod,  love, 

I  learned  that  love  was  all  in  all, 
And  rose  to  di^belive  in  God,  love. 


254  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

\es,  liiisdoin^s  book  !  yoii  taught  me  this, 
And  ere  I  half  had  read  you  through,  love, 

I  learned  a  deeper  ^uisdom  yet — 
/  learned  to  disbelieve  in  you,  love. 

So  710W,  fair  teacher,  I  am  wise, 

And  free :  'tis  truth  that  makes  us  free,  love. 

But  you — you're  pale!  g?vw  wise  as  I, 
And  learn  to  disbeliei'e  in  me,  love. 

h's,  Lady  Ambrose  had  read  on,  her 
voice  had  grown  more  and  more  disap- 
proving, and  several  times  she  had  shown 
symptoms  of  being  on  the  point  of  stopping. 

'  I've  no  doubt  it's  all  very  witty,'  she 
said,  putting  down  the  book,  which  was 
eagerly  caught  up  by  Mr.  Rose,  '  but — but 
that  sort  of  thing,  you  know,'  she  exclaimed 
at  last,  '  I  think  is  rather  better  in  the 
smoking-room.  However,  I  saw  something 
next  to  those  verses,  that  I  think  would  suit 
Miss  Merton.  It  seemed  to  be  a  sort  of 
address  to  the  Virgin  Mary.' 

Miss  Merton  looked  a  little  embarrassed  ; 
Laurence  looked  astonished. 

'  Let  me  read  it.'  exclaimed  Mr.  Rose, 
rapidly  turning  over  the  pages.  '  This  must 
be  what  Lady  Ambrose  means,  I  think  : — 

My  own,  my  one  desire. 
Virgin  most  fair.' 

'Yes,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  'that's  it' 


BOOK  III.     CHAPTER  IV.  255 

'  Oh,'  said  Laurence,  '  that  is  not  my 
uncle's  ;  it  is  mine.  It  is  the  earhest  copy 
of  verses  I  ever  wrote.  I  was  seventeen 
then,  and  by  an  odd  freak  my  uncle  printed 
them  in  the  end  of  his  own  collection.' 

Miss  Merton's  embarrassment  in  a  great 
measure  disappeared.  She  looked  interested; 
and  Mr.  Rose,  in  slow,  suave  tones  went  on 
to  read  : — 

Mine  07un,  my  one  desire, 

Virgin  most  fair 
Of  ail  the  virgin  cJwir  ! 
Hail,  O  most  pure,  most  perfect,  loveliest  one  ! 

Lo,  in  my  hand  I  bear. 
Woven  for  the  circling  of  thy  long  gold  hair. 
Culled  leaves  and  flowers,  from  places  which  tJie  sun 

The  spring  long  shines  upon, 
Where  never  shepherd  hath  driven  flock  to  graze. 

Nor  any  grass  is  moivn  ; 
But  there  sound  through  all  the  sunny  sweet  warm  days, 

Mid  the  green  holy  place, 

The  wild  bee's  wings  alone. 

Yea,  and  with  jealous  cai'e 
The  maiden  Reverence  tends  the  fair  thifigs  there. 
And  luatereth  alloft/mn  withli/ig  spri?ik  showers 
Of  pearled  grey  detv  from  a  clear  running  river. 
Whoso  is  chaste  of  spi^'it  utterly, 
May  gather  there  the  leaves  and  fruits  and  flowers — 

The  ufichaste,  never. 
But  thou,  O  goddess,  and  dearest  love  of  mine — 

('  I  don't  at  all  approve  of  this,'  murmured 
Lady  Ambrose.) 


256  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

Take,  and  about  thine  hair 

This  anadem  entwine — 

Take,  and  for  viy  sake  wear, 
Who  a?n  more  to  thee  than  other  mortals  are, 

Whose  is  the  holy  lot 
As  friend  with  f -lend  to  walk  and  talk  with  thee. 
Hearing  thy  S7veet  mouth's  music  in  mine  eai , 

But  thee  beholding  not} 

'  Ah,  they  are  sweet  verses,'  said  Mr. 
Rose ;  '  a  Httle  too  ascetic,  perhaps,  to  be 
quite  Greek.  They  are  from  Euripides,  I 
see — the  address  to  Artemis  of  Hippolytus.' 

'  Yes,'  said  Laurence  ;  '  I  don't  think  I 
ever  wrote  any  original  poetry.' 

'  It's  exactly  like  Mr.  Laurence — that  bit,' 
whispered  Mrs.  Sinclair. 

*  And  now,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  '  as  I  suppose 
we  shall  ere  long  be  all  going  to  dress  for 
dinner,  I  will  go,  Mr.  Laurence,  if  you  will 
let  me,  and  examine  that  other  volume  you 
spoke  of,  of  your  uncle's  Miscellanies.' 

Mr.  Rose  moved  slowly  away ;  and  as  he 
did  so,  there  came  the  sound  of  the  distant 
dressing-bell,  which  warned  the  whole  party 
that  it  was  time  to  be  following  his  example. 

1  Eur.  Hipp.  V.  69—85. 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  257 


BOOK  IV. 


CHAPTER  I. 


lO  proposal  could  have  been  happier 
than  Lady  Grace's,  of  the  q^ardcn 
banquet  in  the  pavilion.  It  seemed 
to  the  guests,  when  they  were  all 
assembled  there,  that  the  lovely  summer's  day 
was  going  to  close  with  a  scene  from  fairy- 
land. The  table  itself,  with  its  flowers,  and 
glowing  fruit,  and  its  many-coloured  Venetian 
glass,  shone  and  gleamed  and  sparkled, 
in  the  evening  light,  that  was  turning  out- 
side to  a  cool  mellow  amber  ;  and  above,  from 
the  roof,  in  which  the  dusk  was  already 
darkness,  hung  china  lamps,  in  the  shape  of 
green  and  purple  grape-clusters,  looking  like 
luminous  fruits  stolen  from  Aladdin's  garden. 
The  pavilion,  open  on  all  sides,  was  supported 
on  marble  pillars,  that  were  almost  hidden  in 
red  and  white  roses.  Behind,  the  eye  rested 
on  great  tree-trunks,  and  glades  of  rich 
foliage;  and  before,  it  would  pass  over  turf 

s 


25 8  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

and  flowers,  till  it  reached  the  sea  beyond,  on 
which,  in  another  hour,  the  faint  silver  of  the 
moonlight  would  begin  to  tremble. 

There  was  something  in  the  whole  scene 
that  was  at  once  calming  and  exhilarating  ; 
and  nearly  all  present  seemed  to  feel  in  some 
measure  this  double  effect  of  it.  Dr.  Jenkin- 
son  had  been  quite  restored  by  an  afternoon's 
nap  ;  and  his  face  was  now  all  a-twinkle  with 
a  fresh  benignity,  that  had  however,  like  an 
early  spring  morning,  just  a  faint  suspicion  of 
frost  in  it.  Mr.  Storks  even  was  less  severe 
than  usual  ;  and  as  he  raised  his  champagne 
to  his  lips,  he  would  at  times  look  very  nearly 
conversational. 

'  My  dear  Laurence,'  exclaimed  Mr. 
Herbert,  *  it  really  almost  seems  as  if  your 
visions  of  the  afternoon  had  come  true,  and 
that  we  actually  were  in  your  new  Republic 
already.  I  can  only  say  that,  if  it  is  at  all 
like  this,  it  will  be  an  entirely  charming  place 
— too  charming,  perhaps.  But  now,  re- 
member this — you  have  but  half  got  through 
the  business  to  which  you  first  addressed 
yourselves — that  of  forming  a  picture  of  a 
perfect  aristocracy — an  aristocracy  in  the 
true  and  eenuine  sense  of  the  word.  You  are 
all  to  have  culture,  or  taste.  Very  good,  you 
have  talked  a  qreat  deal  about  that,  and  you 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  259 

have  seen  what  you  mean  by  it ;  and  you 
have  recognised,  above  all,  that  it  includes 
a  discrimination  between  right  and  wrong. 
But  now,  you  with  all  this  taste  and  culture — 
you  gifted  men  and  women  of  the  nineteenth 
century, — what  sort  of  things  does  your  taste 
teach  you  to  reach  out  towards  ?  In  what 
actions  and  aims,  in  what  affections  and 
emotions,  would  you  place  your  happiness  ? 
That  is  what  I  want  to  hear — the  practical 
manifestations  of  this  culture.' 

'  Ah,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  '  I  have  at  this 
moment  a  series  of  essays  in  the  press,  which 
would  go  far  towards  answering  these  ques- 
tions of  yours.  They  do,  indeed,  deal  with 
just  this— the  effect  of  the  choicer  culture  of 
this  century  on  the  soul  of  man — the  ways  in 
which  it  endows  him  with  new  perceptions — 
how  it  has  made  him,  in  fact,  a  being 
altogether  more  highly  organised.  All  I 
regret  is,  that  these  choicer  souls,  these  yo.pl- 
evTes,  are  as  yet  like  flowers  that  have  not 
found  a  climate  in  which  they  can  thrive  pro- 
perly. That  mental  climate  will  doubtless 
come  with  time.  What  we  have  been  trying 
to  do  this  afternoon  is,  I  imagine,  nothing 
more  than  to  anticipate  it  in  imagination.' 

*  Well,'  said  Mr.  Herbert,  with  a  litdethe 
tone  of  an   inquisitor,    '  that  is  just  what   I 

s  2 


26o  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

have  been  asking.  What  will  this  climate  be 
like,  and  what  will  these  flowers  be  like  in 
this  climate  ?  How  would  your  culture  alter 
and  better  the  present,  if  its  powers  were 
equal  to  its  wishes  ? ' 

Mr.  Rose's  soft  lulling  tone  harmonised 
well  with  the  scene  and  hour,  and  the  whole 
party  seemed  willing  to  listen  to  him ;  or 
at  any  rate  no  one  felt  any  prompting  to 
interrupt  him. 

'  I  can  show  you  an  example,  Mr.  Her- 
bert,' he  said,  '  of  culture  demanding  a  finer 
climate,  in — if  you  will  excuse  my  seeming 
egoism — in  myself.  For  instance,  (to  take 
the  widest  matter  I  can  fix  upon — the  general 
outward  surroundings  of  our  lives),  often, 
when  I  walk  about  London,  and  see  how 
hideous  its  w^hole  external  aspect  is,  and  what 
a  dissonant  population  throng  it,  a  chill 
feeling  of  despair  comes  over  me.  Consider 
how  the  human  eye  delights  in  form  and 
colour,  and  the  ear  in  tempered  and  har- 
monious sounds  ;  and  then  think  for  a 
moment  of  a  London  street !  Think  of  the 
shapeless  houses,  the  forest  of  ghastly 
chimney-pots,  of  the  hell  of  distracting  noises 
made  by  the  carts,  the  cabs,  the  carriages — 
think  of  the  bustling,  commonplace,  careworn 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  261 

crowds  that  jostle  you — think  of  an  omnibus 
— think  of  a  four-wheeler ' 

'  I  often  ride  in  an  omnibus/  said  Lord 
Allen,  with  a  slight  smile  to  Miss  Merton. 

'  It  is  true,'  replied  Mr.  Rose,  only  over- 
hearing the  tone  in  which  these  words  were 
said,  '  that  one  may  ever  and  again  catch 
some  touch  of  sunlight  that  will  for  a  moment 
make  the  meanest  object  beautiful  with  its 
furtive  alchemy.  But  that  is  Nature's  work, 
not  man's ;  and  we  must  never  confound  the 
accidental  beauty  that  Nature  will  bestow  on 
man's  work,  even  at  its  worst,  with  the 
rational  and  designed  beauty  of  man's  work 
at  its  best.  It  is  this  rational  human  beauty 
that  I  say  our  modern  city  life  is  so  com- 
pletely wanting  in;  nay,  the  look  of  out-of- 
door  London  seems  literally  to  stifle  the  very 
power  of  imagining  such  beauty  possible. 
Indeed,  as  I  wander  along  our  streets,  push- 
ing my  way  among  the  throngs  of  faces — faces 
puckered  with  misdirected  thought,  or  ex- 
pressionless with  none — barbarous  faces  set 
towards  Parliament,  or  Church,  or  scientific 
lecture-rooms,  or  Government  offices,  or 
counting-houses — I  say,  as  I  push  my  way 
amongst  all  the  sights  and  sounds  of  the 
streets  of  our  great  city,  only  one  thing  ever 


^62  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

catches  my  eye,  that  breaks  in  upon  my 
mood,  and  warns  me  I  need  not  despair.' 

'  And  what  is  that  ? '  asked  Allen,  with 
some  curiosity. 

*  The  shops,'  Mr.  Rose  answered,  '  of 
certain  of  our  upholsterers  and  dealers  in 
works  of  art.  Their  windows,  as  I  look  into 
them,  act  like  a  sudden  charm  on  me — like  a 
splash  of  cold  water  dashed  on  my  forehead 
when  I  am  faintino-.  For  I  seem  there  to 
have  got  a  glimpse  of  the  real  heart  of  things  ; 
and  as  my  eyes  rest  on  the  perfect  pattern 
(many  of  which  are  really  quite  delicious ; 
indeed,  when  I  go  to  ugly  houses,  I  often 
take  a  scrap  of  some  artistic  cretonne  with  me 
in  my  pocket  as  a  kind  of  aesthetic  smelling 
salts),  I  say,  when  I  look  in  at  their  windows, 
and  my  eyes  rest  on  the  perfect  pattern  of 
some  new  fabric  for  a  chair  or  for  a  window- 
curtain,  or  on  some  new  design  for  a  wall- 
paper, or  on  some  old  china  vase,  I  become 
at  once  sharply  conscious,  Mr.  Herbert,  that, 
despite  the  ungenial  mental  climate  of  the 
present  age,  strange  yearnings  for,  and  know- 
ledge of,  true  beauty,  are  beginning  to  show 
themselves  like  flowers  above  the  weedy  soil ; 
and  I  remember,  amidst  the  roar  and  clatter 
of  our  streets,  and  the  mad  noises  of  our  own 
times,   that  there  is  amongst  us  a  growing 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  263 

number  who  have  deHberately  turned  their 
backs  on  all  these  things,  and  have  thrown 
their  whole  souls  and  sympathies  into  the 
happier  art-ages  of  the  past.  They  have 
gone  back,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  raising  his  voice  a 
little,  'to  Athens  and  to  Italy,  to  the  Italy  of 
Leo  and  to  the  Athens  of  Pericles.  To  such 
men  the  clamour,  the  interests,  the  struggles 
of  our  own  times,  become  as  meanineless  as 

o 

they  really  are.  To  them  the  boyhood  of 
Bathyllus  is  of  more  moment  than  the  man- 
hood of  Napoleon.  Borgia  is  a  more  familiar 
name  than  Bismarck.  I  know,  indeed — and 
I  really  do  not  blame  them — several  dis- 
tinguished artists  who,  resolving  to  make 
their  whole  lives  consistently  perfect,  will,  on 
principle,  never  admit  a  newspaper  into  their 
houses  that  is  of  later  date  than  the  times  of 
Addison ;  and  I  have  good  trust  that  the 
number  of  such  men  is  on  the  increase — men 
I  mean,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  toying  tenderly  with 
an  exquisite  wine-glass  of  Salviati's,  '  who 
with  a  steady  and  set  purpose  follow  art  for 
the  sake  of  art,  beauty  for  the  sake  of  beauty, 
love  for  the  sake  of  love,  life  for  the  sake  of 
life.' 

Mr.  Rose's  slow  gentle  voice,  which  was 
apt  at  certain  times  to  become  peculiarly 
irritating,  sounded  now  like  the  evening  air 


■264  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

grown  articulate,  and  had  secured  him 
hitherto  a  tranquil  hearing,  as  if  by  a  kind  of 
spell.  This  however  seemed  here  in  sudden 
danger  of  snapping,        ,• 

'What,  >,Ir.  R^^^'^exclaimed  Lady 
Ambrose,  '  do  you  mean  to  say,  then,  that  the 
number  of  people  is  on  the  increase  who 
won't  read  the  newspapers  ? ' 

*  Why,  the  men  must  be  absolute  idiots  ! ' 
said  Lady  Grace,  shaking  her  grey  curls,  and 
putting  on  her  spectacles  to  look  at  Mr. 
Rose. 

Mr.  Rose  however  was  imperturbable. 

'  Of  course,'  he  said,  '  you  may  have 
newspapers  if  you  will  :  I  myself  alwaj^s 
have  them ;  though  in  general  they  are  too 
full  of  public  events  to  be  of  much  interest. 
I  was  merely  speaking  just  now  of  the  spirit 
of  the  movement.  And  of  that  we  must  all 
of  us  here  have  some  knowledge.  We  must 
all  of  us  have  friends  whose  houses  more  or 
less  embody  it.  And  even  if  we  had  not,  we 
could  not  help  seeing  signs  of  it — signs  of 
how  true  and  earnest  it  is,  in  the  enormous 
sums  that  are  now  given  for  really  good 
objects.' 

'  That,'  said  Lady  Grace,  with  some  tart- 
ness, '  is  true  enough,  thank  God  ! ' 

'  But  I  can't  see,'   said    Lady    Ambrose, 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  265 

whose  name  often  figured  in  the  Times,  In 
the  subscription-Hsts  of  advertised  charities — 
'  I  can't  see,  Mr.  Rose,  any  reason  in  that 
why  we  should  not  read  the  newspapers.' 

'  The  other  day,  for  instance,'  said  Mr. 
Rose  reflectively,  '  I  heard  of  eight  Chelsea 
shepherdesses,  picked  up  by  a  dealer,  I  really 
forget  where — in  some  common  cottage,  if  I 
recollect  aright,  covered  with  dirt,  giving  no 
pleasure  to  anyone — and  these  were  all  sold 
in  a  single  day,  and  not  one  of  them  fetched 
less  than  two  hundred  and  twenty  pounds.' 

*  /  can't  help  thinking  they  must  have 
come  from  Cremorne,'  said  Mrs.  Sinclair 
softly. 

'  But  why,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  '  should  I 
speak  of  particular  instances  ?  We  must  all 
of  us  have  friends  whose  houses  are  full  of 
priceless  treasures  such  as  these — the  whole 
atmosphere  of  whose  rooms  really  seems  im- 
pregnated with  art — seems  in  fact,  Mr. 
Herbert,  such  an  atmosphere  as  we  should 
dream  of  for  our  new  Republic' 

'  To  be  sure,'  exclaimed  Lady  Ambrose, 
feeling  that  she  had  at  last  got  upon  solid 
ground.  '  By  the  way,  Mr,  Rose,'  she  said, 
with  her  most  gracious  of  smiles,  '  I  suppose 
you  have  hardly  seen  Lady  Julia  Hayman's 
new  house  in   Belgrave  Square  ?     I'm  sure 


266  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

that    would   delight  you.      I    should    like    to 
take  you  there  some  day,  and  show  it  to  you.' 

'  I  have  seen  it,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  with 
languid  condescension.  *  It  was  very  pretty, 
I  thought — some  of  it  really  quite  nice.' 

This  and  the  slight  rudeness  of  manner  it 
was  said  with,  raised  Mr.  Rose  greatly  in 
Lady  Ambrose's  estimation,  and  she  began  to 
think  with  respect  of  his  late  utterances. 

'  Well,  Mr.  Herbert,'  Mr.  Rose  went  on, 
'  what  I  want  to  say  is  this.  We  have  here 
in  the  present  age,  as  it  is,  fragments  of  the 
ri(iht  thino;'.  We  have  a  number  of  isolated 
right  interiors  ;  we  have  a  few,  very  few  right 
exteriors.  But  in  our  ideal  state,  our  entire 
city — our  London — the  metropolis  of  our 
society,  would  be  as  a  whole  as  perfect  as 
these  fragments.  Taste  would  not  there  be 
merely  an  indoor  thing.  It  would  be  written 
visibly  for  all  to  look  upon,  in  our  streets,  our 
squares,  our  gardens.  Could  we  only  mould 
England  to  our  wishes,  the  thing  to  do,  I  am 
persuaded,  would  be  to  remove  London  to 
some  kindlier  site,  that  it  might  there  be 
altogether  born  anew.  I  myself  would  have 
it  taken  to  the  south-west,  and  to  the  sea- 
coast,  where  the  waves  are  blue,  and  where 
the  air  is  calm  and  fine,  and  there — ' 

'  Ah  me ! '  sighed  Mr.  Luke  with  a  lofty 
sadness,  *  coelwn  non  animavi  vmtant' 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  267 

'  Pardon  me,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  • '  few  para- 
doxes— and  most  paradoxes  are  false — are,  I 
think,  so  false  as  that.  This  much  at  least  of 
sea-like  man's  mind  has,  that  scarcely  any- 
thing so  distinctly  gives  a  tone  to  it  as  the 
colour  of  the  skies  he  lives  under.  And  I 
v>^as  going  to  say,'  he  went  on,  looking  out 
dreamily  towards  the  evening  waves,  '  that  as 
the  imagination  is  a  quick  workman,  I  can  at 
this  moment  see  our  metropolis  already  trans- 
planted and  rebuilt.  I  seem  to  see  it  now  as 
it  were  from  a  distance,  with  its  palaces,  its 
museums,  its  churches,  its  convents,  its  gar- 
dens, its  picture-galleries — a  cluster  of  domed 
and  pillared  marble,  sparkling  on  a  gray 
headland.  It  is  Rome,  it  is  Athens,  it  is 
Florence,  arisen  and  come  to  life  again,  in 
these  modern  days.  The  aloe-tree  of  beauty 
again  blossoms  there,  under  the  azure  stain- 
less sky.' 

'  Do  you  know,  Mr.  Rose,'  said  Lady 
Ambrose  in  her  most  cordial  manner,  '  all 
this  is  very  beautiful  ;  and  certainly  no  one 
can  think  London  as  it  is  more  ugly  than  I 
do.  That's  natural  in  me,  isn't  it,  being  a 
denizen  of  poor  prosaic  South  Audley  Street 
as  I  am  ?  But  don't  you  think  that  your 
notion  is — it's  very  beautiful,  I  quite  feel  that 
— but  don't  you  think  it  is  perhaps  a  little  too 


268  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

dream-like — too  unreal,  if  you  know  what  I 
mean  ? ' 

*  Such  a  city/  said  Mr.  Rose  earnestly,  '  is 
indeed  a  dream,  but  it  is  a  dream  w^hich  we 
might  make  a  reality,  would  circumstances 
only  permit  of  it.  We  have  many  amongst 
us  who  know  what  is  beautiful,  and  who 
passionately  desire  it  ;  and  would  others  only 
be  led  by  these,  it  is  quite  conceivable  that 
we  might  some  day  have  a  capital,  the  entire 
aspect  of  which  should  be  the  visible  embo- 
diment of  our  finest  and  most  varied  culture, 
our  most  sensitive  taste,  and  our  deepest 
aesthetic  measure  of  things.  This  is  what  this 
capital  of  our  new  Republic  must  be,  this 
dwelling-place  of  our  ideal  society.  We  shall 
have  houses,  galleries,  streets,  theatres,  such 
as  Giulio  Romano  or  Giorgio  Vasari,  or 
Giulio  Campi  would  have  rejoiced  to  look  at ; 
we  shall  have  metal-work  worthy  of  the  hand 
of  Ghiberti  and  the  praise  of  Michel  Angelo  ; 
we  shall  rival  Domenico  Beccafumi  with  our 
pavements.  x\s  you  wander  through  our 
thoroughfares  and  our  gardens,  your  feelings 
will  not  be  jarred  by  the  presence  of  human 
vulgarity,  or  the  desolating  noise  of  traffic  ; 
nor  in  every  spare  space  will  your  eyes  be 
caught  by  abominable  advertisements  of  ex- 
cursion trains  to  Brighton,  or  of  Horniman's 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  269 

cheap  tea.  They  will  rest  Instead,  here  on 
an  exquisite  fountain,  here  on  a  statue,  here 
on  a  bust  of  Zeus  or  Hermes  or  Aphrodite, 
glimmering  in  a  laurelled  nook  ;  or  on  a 
Mater  Dolorosa  looking  down  on  you  from 
her  holy  shrine  ;  or  on  the  carved  marble 
gate-posts  of  our  palace  gardens,  or  on  their 
wrought  iron  or  wrought  bronze  gates  ;  or 
perhaps  on  such  triumphal  arches  as  that 
which  Antonio  San  Gallo  constructed  in 
honour  of  Charles  V.,  and  of  which  you  must 
all  remember  the  description  given  by  Vasari. 
Such  a  city,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  '  would  be  the 
externalisation  of  the  human  spirit  in  the 
highest  state  of  development  that  we  can 
conceive  for  it.  We  should  there  see  ex- 
pressed openly  all  our  appreciations  of  all 
the  beauty  that  we  can  detect  in  the  world's 
whole  history.  The  wind  of  the  spirit  that 
breathed  there  would  blow  to  us  from  all 
the  places  of  the  past,  and  be  charged  with 
infinite  odours.  Every  frieze  on  our  walls, 
every  clustered  capital  of  a  marble  column, 
would  be  a  garland  or  nosegay  of  associations. 
Indeed,  our  whole  city,  as  compared  with  the 
London  that  is  now,  would  be  itself  a  nosegay 
as  compared  with  a  faggot  ;  and  as  related  to 
the  life  that  I  would  see  lived  in  it,  it  would  be 
like  a  shell  murmuring  with  all  the  world's 


270  THE  NFAV  REPUBLIC. 

memories,  and  held  to  the  ear  of  the  two 
twins,  Life  and  Love.' 

Mr.  Rose  had  crot  so  dreamy  by  this  time 
that  he  felt  himself  the  necessity  of  turning  a 
little  more  matter-of-fact  again. 

'  You  will  see  what  I  mean,  plainly 
enough,'  he  said,  '  if  you  will  just  think  of  our 
architecture,  and  consider  how  that  naturally 
will  be ' 

'  Yes,'  said  Mr.  Luke,  '  I  should  be  glad 
to  hear  about  our  architecture.' 

' — How  that  naturally  will  be,'  Mr.  Rose 
went  on,  *  of  no  style  in  particular.' 

'  The  deuce  it  won't ! '  exclaimed  Mr. 
Luke. 

'  No,'  continued  Mr.  Rose,  unmoved  ;  '  no 
style  in  particular,  but  a  1'cnaissancc  of  all 
styles.  It  will  matter  nothing  to  us  whether 
they  be  pagan  or  Catholic,  classical  or 
mediaeval.  We  shall  be  quite  without  pre- 
judice or  bigotry.  To  the  eye  of  true  taste, 
an  Aquinas  in  his  cell  before  a  crucifix,  or  a 
Narcissus  gazing  at  himself  in  a  still  fountain, 
are — in  their  own  wa}'s,  you  know — equally 
beautiful' 

'Well,  really,'  said  Miss  Merton,  'I  can 
not  fancy  St,  Thomas  being  a  very  taking 
object  to  people  who  don't  believe  in  him 
either  as  a  saint  or  a  philosopher.     I  always 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  271 

think  that,  except  from  a  Christian  point  of 
view,  a  saint  can  be  hardly  better  described 
than  by  Newman's  Hnes,  as — 

A  bundle  of  bones,  whose  breath 
Infects  the  world  before  his  death.'  ^ 

'  I  remember  the  Hnes  well,'  said  Mr. 
Rose  calmly,  'and  the  writer  you  mention 
puts  them  in  the  mouth  of  a  yelping  devil. 
But  devils,  as  far  as  I  know,  are  not  generally 
— except,  perhaps,  Milton's — conspicuous  for 
taste  :  indeed,  if  we  may  trust  Goethe,  the 
very  touch  of  a  flower  is  torture  to  them.' 

'  Dante's  biggest  devil,'  cried  Mr.  Saun- 
ders, to  everyone's  amazement,  '  chewed 
Judas  Iscariot  like  a  quid  of  tobacco,  to  all 
eternity.  He,  at  any  rate,  knew  what  he 
liked.' 

Mr.  Rose  started,  and  visited  Mr.  Saun- 
ders with  a  rapid  frown.  He  then  proceeded, 
turning  again  to  Miss  Merton  as  if  nothing 
had  happened. 

'  Let  me  rather,'  he  said,  '  read  a  nice 
sonnet  to  you,  which  I  had  sent  to  me  this 
morning,  and  which  was  in  my  mind  just  now. 
These  lines ' — Mr.  Rose  here  produced  a 
paper  from  his  pocket — '  were  written  by  a 
boy  of  eighteen — a  youth   of   extraordinary 

1  Vide  J.  H.  Newman's  Dream  of  Gerontins. 


272  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

promise,  I  think,  whose  education  I  may  my- 
self claim  to  have  had  some  share  in  direct- 
ing. Listen,'  he  said,  laying  the  verses  before 
him,  on  a  clean  plate. 

Three  visions  in  the  7vatches  of  one  night 

Made  sweet  my  sleep — almost  too  siveet  to  tell. 

One  was  Nanissus  by  a  woodside  well, 

And  on  the  moss  his  limbs  and  feet  were  7vhite; 

And  one,  Queen  Venus,  bloion  for  my  delight 

Across  the  blue  sea  in  a  rosy  shell ; 

And  one,  a  lean  Aquinas  in  his  cell, 

Kneeling,  his  pen  iJi  hand,  with  aching  sight 

Strained  toiuards  a  carven  Christ;  and  of  these  three 

I  kne^u  not  which  was  fairest.     First  J  turned 

Towards  that  soft  boy,  who  laughed  and  fled  from  me ; 

Towards  Venus  then;  and  she  smiled  once,  a?ul  she 

Fled  also.     Then  with  teeming  heart  I  yearned, 

O  Angel  of  the  Schools,  towards  Christ  7vith  thee! 

Yes,'  murmured  Mr.  Rose  to  himself,  folding 
up  the  paper  ;  '  they  are  dear  lines.  Now, 
there,'  he  said,  '  we  have  a  true  and  tender 
expression  of  the  really  Catholic  spirit  of 
modern  sestheticism,  which  holds  nothing 
common  or  unclean.  It  is  in  this  spirit,  I  say, 
that  the  architects  of  our  state  will  set  to 
work.  And  thus  for  our  houses,  for  our 
picture-galleries,  for  our  churches — I  trust  we 
shall  have  many   churches— they  will   select 

and  combine ' 

'  Do  you  seriously  mean,'  broke  in  Allen, 
a  little  impatiently,  '  that  it  is  a  thing  to  wish 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  273 

for  and  to  look  forward  to,  that  we  should 
abandon  all  attempts  at  original  architecture, 
and  content  ourselves  with  simply  sponging 
on  the  past  ? ' 

'  I   do,'  replied  Mr.   Rose  suavely  ;  '  and\ 
for  this  reasbn,  if  for  no  other,  that  the  world 
can  now  successfully  do  nothing  else.      Nor, 
indeed,  is  it  to  be  expected  or  even  wished 
that  it  should.' 

'  You  say  we  have  no  good  architecture 
now !' exclaimed  Lady  Ambrose;  'but,  Mr. 
Rose,  have  you  forgotten  our  modern 
churches  ?  Don't  you  think  them  beautiful  ? 
Perhaps  you  never  go  to  All  Saints'  ?  ' 

'I  every  now  and  then,'  said  Mr.  Rose, 
'  when  I  am  in  the  weary  mood  for  it,  attend 
the  services  of  our  English  Ritualists,  and  I 
admire  their  churches  very  much  indeed.  In 
some  places  the  whole  thing  is  really  managed 
with  surprising  skill.  The  dim  religious  twi- 
light, fragrant  with  the  smoke  of  incense  ;  the 
tano^led  roofs  that  the  music  seems  to  clinof 
to  ;  the  tapers,  the  high  altar,  and  the  strange 
intonation  of  the  priests,  all  produce  a  curious 
old-world  effect,  and  seem  to  unite  one  with 
things  that  have  been  long  dead.  Indeed,  it 
all  seems  to  me  far  more  a  part  of  the  past 
than  the  services  of  the  Catholics.' 

Lady  Ambrose  did  not  express  her  appro- 

T 


274  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

bation  of  the  last  part  of  this  sentiment,  out 
of  regard  for  Miss  Merton  ;  but  she  gave 
a  smile  and  a  nod  of  pleased  intelligence  to 
Mr.  Rose. 

'Yes/  Mr.  Rose  went  on,  'there  is  a 
regretful  insincerity  about  it  all,  that  is  very- 
nice,  and  that  at  once  appeals  to  me,  "  Gleich 
einer  alien  kaldverkhmgen  Sage."  The  priests 
are  only  half  in  earnest ;  the  congregations, 
even ' 

'  Then  I  am  quite  sure,'  interrupted  Lady 
Ambrose  with  vigour,  '  that  you  can  never 
have  heard  Mr.  Cope  preach.' 

*  I  don't  know,'  said  Mr.  Rose  languidly. 
'  I  never  enquired,  nor  have  I  ever  heard 
anyone  so  much  as  mention,  the  names  of 
any  of  them.  Now  all  that,  Lady  Ambrose, 
were  life  really  in  the  state  it  should  be,  you 
would  be  able  to  keep.' 

'  Do  you  seriously,  and  in  sober  earnest, 
mean,'  Allen  again  broke  in,  'that  you  think 
it  a  eood  thino-  that  all  our  art  and  architec- 
ture  should  be  borrowed  and  insincere,  and 
that  our  very  religion  should  be  nothing  but 
a  dilettante  memory  ? ' 

'The  opinion,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  'which  by 
the  way  you  slightly  misrepresent,  is  not 
mine  only,  but  that  of  all  those  of  our  own 
day   who  are  really  devoting  themselves  tq 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  275 

art  for  its  own  sake.      I  will  try  to  explain  the 

reason  of  this.      In  the  world's  life,  just  as  in 

the  life  of  a  man,  there  are  certain  periods  of 

eager  and  all-absorbing  action,  and  these  are 

followed  by  periods  of  memory  and  reflection. 

We    then    look    back   upon    our   past,    and 

become  for  the  first  time  conscious   of  what 

we   are,  and  of  what  we  have    done.      We 

then  see  the  dignity  of  toil,   and  the  grand 

results  of  it,  the  beauty  and  the  strength  of 

faith,   and  the  fervent  power  of  patriotism ; 

which,  whilst  we  laboured,  and  believed,  and 

loved,  we  were  quite  blind  to.      Upon  such  a 

reflective  period  has  the  world  now  entered. 

It  has  acted  and  believed  already  ;  its  task 

now  is  to  learn  to  value  action  and  belief — to 

feel  and  to  be  thrilled  at  the  beauty  of  them. 

And  the  chief  means  by  which  it  can  learn 

this  is  art — the  art  of  a  renaissance.     For  by 

the  power  of  such  art,  all  that  was  beautiful, 

strong,  heroic,  or  tender  in  the  past — all  the 

actions,    passions,    faiths,    aspirations    of  the 

world,  that  lie  so  many  fathom  deep  in  the 

years — float  upwards   to  the  tranquil  surface 

of  the  present,  and  make  our  lives  like  what 

seems  to  me  one  of  the  loveliest  things  in 

nature,  the   iridescent  film  on   the  face  of  a 

stagnant  water.     Yes  ;  the  past  is  not  dead 

unless  we  choose  that  it  shall  be  so.     Chris- 
T  2 


276  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC, 

tianity  itself  is  not  dead.  There  is  "  nothing 
of  it  that  doth  fade,"  but  turns  "into  some- 
thing rich  and  strange,"  for  us  to  give  a  new 
tone  to  our  Hves  with.  And,  beheve  me,' 
Mr.  Rose  went  on,  gathering  earnestness, 
*  that  the  happiness  possible  in  such  conscious 
periods  is  the  only  true  happiness.  Indeed, 
the  active  periods  of  the  world  were  not 
really  happy  at  all.  We  only  fancy  them  to 
have  been  so  by  a  pathetic  fallacy.  Is  the 
hero  happy  during  his  heroism  ?  No,  but 
after  it,  when  he  sees  what  his  heroism  was, 
and  reads  the  glory  of  it  in  the  eyes  of  youth 
or  maiden.' 

*  All  this  is  very  poor  stuff — very  poor 
stuff,'  murmured  Dr.  Jenkinson,  whose  face 
had  become  gradually  the  very  picture  of 
crossness. 

'  Do  you  mean,  Mr.  Rose,'  said  Miss 
Merton,  with  a  half  humorous,  half  incre- 
dulous smile,  '  that  we  never  value  religion 
till  we  have  come  to  think  it  nonsense  }  ' 

*  Not  nonsense — no,'  exclaimed  Mr.  Rose 
in  gentle  horror  ;  '  I  only  mean  that  it  never 
lights  our  lives  so  beautifully  as  when  it  is 
leaving  them  like  the  evening  sun.  It  is  in 
such  periods  of  the  world's  life  that  art 
springs  into  being  in  its  greatest  splendour. 
Your   Raphael,  Miss    Merton,    who   painted 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  277 

you  your  "  dear  Madonnas,"  was  a  luminous 
cloud  in  the  sunset  sky  of  the  Renaissance, 
—a  cloud  that  took  its  fire  from  a  faith  that 
was  sunk  or  sinking.' 

'  I'm  afraid  that  the  faith  is  not  quite 
sunk  yet,'  said  Miss  Merton,  with  a  slight 
sudden  flush  in  her  cheeks,  and  with  just  the 
faintest  touch  of  suppressed  anger. 

Mr.  Saunders,  Mr.  Stockton,  Mr.  Storks, 
and  Mr.  Luke  all  raised  their  eyebrows. 

'  No,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  '  such  cyclic  sunsets 
are  happily  apt  to  linger.' 

'Mr.  Rose,'  exclaimed  Lady  Ambrose, 
with  her  most  gracious  of  smiles,  '  of  course 
everyone  who  has  ears  must  know  that  all 
this  is  very  beautiful,  but  I  am  positively  so 
stupid  that  I  haven't  been  quite  able  to  follow 
it  all.' 

'  I  will  try  to  make  my  meaning  clearer,' 
he  said,  in  a  brisker  tone.  '  I  often  figure  to 
myself  an  unconscious  period  and  a  conscious 
one,  as  two  women— one  an  untamed 
creature  with  embrowned  limbs  native  to  the 
air  and  the  sea ;  the  other  marble- white  and 
swan-soft,  couched  delicately  on  cushions 
before  a  mirror,  and  watching  her  own  supple 
reflection  gleaming  in  the  depths  of  it.  On 
the  one  is  the  sunshine  and  the  sea-spray. 
The  wind  of  Heaven  and  her  unbound  hair 


278  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

are  playmates.  The  light  of  the  sky  is  in  her 
eyes  ;  on  her  lips  is  a  free  laughter.  We 
look  at  her,  and  we  know  that  she  is  happy. 
We  know  it,  mark  me  ;  but  she  knows  it  not. 
Turn,  however,  to  the  other,  and  all  is 
changed.  Outwardly,  there  is  no  gladness 
there.  Her  dark,  gleaming  eyes  open  depth 
within  depth  upon  us,  like  the  circles  of  a 
new  Inferno.  There  is  a  clear,  shadowy 
pallor  on  her  cheek.  Only  her  lips  are 
scarlet.  There  is  a  sadness — a  languor,  even 
in  the  grave  tendrils  of  her  heavy  hair,  and 
in  each  changing  curve  of  her  bosom  as  she 
breathes  or  sighs.' 

'What  a  very  odd  man  Mr.  Rose  is!' 
said  Lady  Ambrose  in  a  loud  whisper.  *  He 
always  seems  to  talk  of  everybody  as  if  they 
had  no  clothes  on.  And  does  he  mean  by 
this  that  we  ought  to  be  always  in  the 
dumps  ? ' 

'  Yes,'  Mr.  Rose  was  meanwhile  proceed- 
ing, his  voice  again  growing  visionary,  '  there 
is  no  eagerness,  no  action  there  ;  and  yet  all 
eagerness,  all  action  is  known  to  her  as  the 
writing  on  an  open  scroll  ;  only,  as  she  reads, 
even  in  the  reading  of  it,  action  turns  into 
emotion,  and  eagerness  into  a  sighing  memory. 
Yet  such  a  woman  really  may  stand  symbo- 
lically for  us  as  the  patroness  and  the  lady  of 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  279 

all  gladness,  who  makes  us  glad  in  the  only 
way  now  left  us.  And  not  only  in  the  only 
way,  but  in  the  best  way — the  way  of  ways. 
Her  secret  is  self-consciousness.  She  knows 
that  she  is  fair  ;  she  knows,  too,  that  she  is 
sad ;  but  she  sees  that  sadness  is  lovely,  and 
so  sadness  turns  to  joy.  Such  a  woman  may 
be  taken  as  a  symbol,  not  of  our  archi- 
tecture only,  but  of  all  the  aesthetic  sur- 
roundings with  which  we  shall  shelter  and 
express  our  life.  Such  a  woman  do  I  see 
whenever  I  enter  a  ritualistic  church ' 

'  I  know,'  said  Mrs.  Sinclair,  '  that  very 
peculiar  people  do  go  to  such  places  ;  but, 
Mr,  Rose,'  she  said  with  a  look  of  appealing 
enquiry,  '  I  thought  they  were  generally 
rather  over-dressed  than  otherwise  ? ' 

'  The  imagination,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  open- 
ing his  eyes  in  grave  wonder  at  Mrs.  Sinclair, 
'  may  give  her  what  garb  it  chooses.  Our 
whole  city,  then — the  city  of  our  new  Re- 
public— will  be  in  keeping  with  this  spirit.  It 
will  be  the  architectural  and  decorative  em- 
bodiment of  the  most  educated  longings  of 
our  own  times  after  order  and  loveliness  and 
delight,  whether  of  the  senses  or  the  ima- 
gination. It  will  be,  as  it  were,  a  resurrec- 
tion of  the  past,  in  response  to  the  longing 
and  the  passionate  regret  of  the  present.      It 


28o  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

will  be  such  a  resurrection  as  took  place  in 
Italy  during  its  greatest  epoch,  only  with  this 
difference ' 

'  You  seem  to  have  forgotten  trade  and 
business  altogether,'  said  Dr.  Jenkinson.  '  I 
think,  however  rich  you  intend  to  be,  you 
will  find  that  they  are  necessary.' 

'  Yes,  Mr.  Rose,  you're  not  going  to 
deprive  us  of  all  our  shops,  I  hope  ? '  said 
Lady  Ambrose. 

*  Because,  you  know,'  said  Mrs.  Sinclair, 
with  a  soft  maliciousness,  '  we  can't  go  with- 
out dresses  altogether,  Mr.  Rose.  And  if  I 
were  there,'  she  continued  plaintively,  '  I 
should  want  a  bookseller  to  publish  the 
scraps  of  verse — poetry,  as  I  am  pleased  to 
call  it — that  I  am  always  writing.' 

'  Pooh  ! '  said  Mr.  Rose,  a  little  annoyed, 
'  we  shall  have  all  that  somewhere,  of  course  ; 
but  it  will  be  out  of  the  way,  in  a  sort  of 
Piraeus,  where  the  necessary  KamjXoL ' 

'  A  sort  of  what  ? '  said  Lady  Ambrose. 

'  Mr.  Rose  merely  means,'  said  Donald 
Gordon,  '  that  there  must  be  good  folding- 
doors  between  the  offices  and  the  house  of 
life  ;  and  that  the  servants  are  not  to  be  seen 
walking  about  in  the  pleasure-grounds.' 

'Yes,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  'exactly  so.' 

'Well,  then,'    said    Lady    Ambrose,    'I 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  /.  281 

quite  agree  with  you,  Mr.  Rose ;  and  if 
wishing  were  only  having,  I've  not  the  least 
doubt  that  we  should  all  of  us  be  going  back 
to  Mr.  Rose's  city  to-morrow,  instead  of  to 
London,  with  its  carts,  and  cabs,  and  smoke, 
and  all  its  thousand-and-one  drawbacks.  I'm 
sure,'  she  said,  turning  to  Miss  Merton,  '  you 
would,  my  dear,  with  all  your  taste.' 

'  It  certainly,'  said  Miss  Merton,  smiling, 
'all  sounds  very  beautiful.  All  I  am  afraid 
of  is  that  we  should  not  be  quite  worthy  of  it.' 

'  Nay,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  '  but  the  very 
point  is  that  we  shall  be  worthy  of  it,  and 
that  it  will  be  worthy  of  us.  I  said,  if  you 
recollect,  just  now,  that  the  world's  ideal  of 
the  future  must  resemble  in  many  ways  its 
memory  of  the  Italian  Renaissance.  But 
don't  let  that  mislead  you.  It  may  resemble 
that,  but  it  will  be  something  far  in  advance 
of  it.  During  the  last  three  hundred  years 
— in  fact,  during  the  last  sixty  or  seventy 
years,  the  soul  of  man  has  developed 
strangely  in  its  sentiments  and  its  powers  of 
feeling  ;  in  its  powers,  in  fact,  of  enjoying 
life.  As  I  said,  I  have  a  work  in  the  press, 
devoted  entirely  to  a  description  of  this 
growth.  I  have  some  of  the  proof  sheets 
with  me ;  and  if  you  will  let  me  I  should  like 
to  read  you  one  or  two  passages.' 


282  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  I  don't  think  much  can  be  made  out  of 
that,'  said  Dr.  Jenkinson,  with  a  vincHctive 
sweetness.  '  Human  sentiment  dresses  itself 
in  different  fashions,  as  human  kidies  do  ;  but 
I  think  beneath  the  surface  it  is  much  the 
same.  I  mean,'  he  added,  suddenly  recollect- 
ing that  he  might  thus  seem  to  be  rooting  up 
the  wheat  of  his  own  opinions  along  with  the 
tares  of  Mr.  Rose's,  '  I  mean  that  I  don't 
think  in  seventy  years,  or  even  in  three 
hundred,  you  will  be  able  to  show  that 
human  nature  has  very  much  changed.  I 
don't  think  so.' 

Unfortunately,  however,  the  Doctor  found 
that,  instead  of  putting  down  Mr.  Rose  by 
this,  he  had  only  raised  up  Mr.  Luke. 

'  Ah,  Jenkinson,  I  think  you  are  wrong 
there,'  said  Mr.  Luke.  '  As  long  as  we  re- 
cognise that  this  growth  is  at  present  con- 
fined to  a  very  small  minority,  the  fact  of 
such  growth  is  the  most  important,  the  most 
significant  of  all  facts.  Lideed,  our  friend  Mr. 
Rose  is  quite  right  thus  far,  in  the  stress  he 
lays  on  our  appreciation  of  the  past,  that  we 
have  certainly  in  these  modern  times  acquired 
a  new  sense,  by  which  alone  the  past  can  be 
appreciated  truly,  the  sense  which,  if  I  may 
invent  a  phrase  for  it,  I  should  call  that  of 
Historical    Perspective ;    so  that   now  really 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  283 

for  the  first  time  the  landscape  of  history  is 
beg-inninor-  to  have  some  intelhp^ible  charm  for 
us.  And  this,  you  know,  is  not  all.  Our 
whole  views  of  things — (you,  Jenkinson,  must 
know  this  as  well  as  I  do) — the  Zeitgeist 
breathes  upon  them,  and  they  do  not  die  ; 
but  they  are  changed — they  are  enlightened.' 

The  Doctor  was  too  much  annoyed  to 
make  any  audible  answer  to  this  ;  but  he 
murmured  with  some  emphasis  to  himself, 
*  That's  7iot  what  Mr.  Rose  w^as  saying ; 
that's  not  what  I  was  contradicting.' 

'  You  take,  Luke,  a  rather  more  rose- 
coloured  view  of  things  than  you  did  last 
night,'  said  Mr.  Storks. 

'  No,'  said  Mr.  Luke,  with  a  sigh,  '  far 
from  it.  I  am  not  denying  {pray,  Jenkinson, 
remember  this)  that  the  majority  of  us  are  at 
present  either  Barbarians  cr  Philistines  ;  and 
the  ugliness  of  these  is  more  glaring  now 
than  at  any  former  time.  But  that  any  of  us 
are  able  to  see  them  thus  distinctly  in  their 
true  colours,  itself  shows  that  there  must  be 
a  deal  of  light  somewhere.  Even  to  make 
darkness  visible  some  light  is  needed.  We 
should  always  recollect  that.  We  are  only 
discontented  with  ourselves  when  we  are 
struggling  to  be  better  than  ourselves.' 

*  And  in  many  ways,'  said  Laurence,  '  I 


284  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

think  the  struggle  has  been  successful, 
Take,  for  instance,  the  pleasure  we  get  now 
from  the  aspects  of  external  nature,  and  the 
way  in  which  these  seem  to  mix  themselves 
with  our  lives.  This  certainly  is  something 
distinctly  modern.  And  nearly  all  our  other 
feelings,  it  seems  to  me,  have  changed  just 
like  this  one,  and  have  become  more  sensi- 
tive, and  more  highly  organised.  If  we  may 
judge  by  its  expression  in  literature,  love 
has,  certainly ;  and  that  I  suppose  is  the 
most  important  and  comprehensive  feeling 
in  life.' 

'  Does  Mr.  Laurence  only  stippose  that  ? ' 
sighed  Mrs.  Sinclair,  casting  down  her  eyes. 

*  Well,'  said  Dr.  Jenkinson,  *  our  feelings 
about  these  two  thinsfs — about  love  and  ex- 
ternal  nature — perhaps  have  changed  some- 
what. Yes,  I  think  they  have.  I  think  you 
might  make  an  interesting  magazine  article 
out  of  that — but  hardly  more.' 

*  I  rather,'  said  Laurence  apologetically, 
'  agree  with  Mr.  Luke  and  Mr.  Rose,  that 
all  our  feelings  have  developed  just  as  these 
two  have.  And  I  think  this  is  partly  owing 
to  the  fusion  in  our  minds  of  our  sacred  and 
secular  ideas — which  indeed  you  were  speak- 
ing of  this  morning  in  your  sermon.  Thus, 
to  find  some  rational  purpose  in  life  was  once 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  285 

merely  enjoined  as  a  supernatural  duty.  In  our 
times  it  has  taken  our  common  nature  upon 
it,  and  become  a  natural  longing — though, 
I  fear,'  he  added  softly,  '  a  fruitless  one.' 

'  Yes,'  suddenly  exclaimed  Lady  Grace, 
who  had  been  listening  intently  to  her 
nephew's  words  ;  '  and  if  you  are  speaking 
of  modern  progress,  Otho,  you  should  not 
leave  out  the  diffusion  of  those  grand  ideas 
of  justice,  and  right,  and  freedom,  and 
humanity  which  are  at  work  in  the  great 
heart  of  the  nation.  We  are  growing  culti- 
vated in  Mr.  Luke's  noble  sense  of  the  word, 
and  our  whole  hearts  revolt  against  the  way  in 
which  women  have  hitherto  been  treated,  and 
against  the  cruelties  which  dogma  asserts  the 
good  God  can  practise,  and  the  cruelties  on 
the  poor  animals  which  wicked  men  do  prac- 
tise. And  war  too,'  Lady  Grace  went  on,  a 
glow  mounting  into  her  soft  faded  cheek, 
'  think  how  fast  we  are  out^rowinof  that ! 
England  at  any  rate  will  never  watch  the 
outbreak  of  another  war,  with  all  its  inevi- 
table cruelties,  without  giving  at  least  one 
^b  that  shall  make  all  Europe  pause  and 
listen.  Indeed,  we  must  not  forget  how  the 
entire  substance  of  religion  is  ceasing  to  be 
a  mass  of  dogmas,  and  is  becoming  em- 
bodied instead  in  practice  and  in  action.' 


286  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  Quite  true,  Lady  Grace,'  said  Mr.  Luke. 
Lady  Grace  was  just  about  to  have  given  a 
sign  for  rising ;  but  Mr.  Luke's  assent  de- 
tained her.  '  As  to  war,'  he  went  on,  '  there 
may,  of  course,  be  different  opinions.  Ques- 
tions of  poHcy    may    arise '   ('  As  if  any 

policy,'  murmured  Lady  Grace,  '  could  justify 
us  in  such  a  thing  ! ')  '  but  religion — yes, 
that,  as  I  have  been  trying  to  teach  the 
world,  is  the  great  and  important  point  on 
which  culture  is  beginning  to  cast  its  light — 
and  with  just  the  effect  which  you  describe. 
It  is  true  that  culture  is  at  present  but  a 
little  leaven  hid  in  a  barrel  of  meal  ;  but  still 
it  is  doing  its  work  slowly ;  and  in  the 
matter  of  religion — indeed,  in  all  matters,  for 

religion  rightly  understood  embraces  all ' 

('  I  do  like  to  hear  Mr.  Luke  talk  sometimes,' 
murmured  Lady  Grace),  *  its  effect  is  just 
this — to  show  us  that  religion  in  any  civilised, 
any  reasonable,  any  sweet  sense,  can  never 
be  found  except  embodied  in  action  ;  that  it 
is,  in  fact,  nothing  but  right  action,  pointed — 
winged,  as  it  were — by  right  emotion,  by  a 
glow,  an   aspiration — an    aspiration    towards 

God '  (Lady  Grace  sighed  with  feeling) 

— '  not  of  course,'  Mr.  Luke  went  on  confi- 
dentially,   '  that    petulant     Pedant     of    the 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  287 

theologians — that  irritable  angry  Feather,  ^vith 
the  very  uncertain  temper — but  towards ' 

'  An  infinite,  inscrutable,  loving  Being,' 
began  Lady  Grace,  with  a  slight  moisture  in 
her  eyes. 

'  Quite  so,'  said  Mr.  Luke,  not  waiting  to 
listen,  'towards  that  o-reat  Law — that  ereat 
verifiable  tendency  of  things — that  great 
stream  whose  flowing  such  of  us  as  are  able 
are  now  so  anxiously  trying  to  accelerate. 
There  is  no  vain  speculation  about  creation, 
and  first  causes,  and  consciousness  here, 
which  are  matters  we  can  never  verify,  and 
which  matter  nothing  to  us ' 

'  But,'  stammered  Lady  Grace  aghast, 
'  Mr.  Luke,  do  you  mean  to  say  that — but  it 
surely  must  matter  something  whether  God 
can  hear  our  prayers,  and  will  help  us,  and 
whether  we  owe  Him  any  dut)^  and  whether 
He  is  conscious  of  what  we  do,  and  will 
judge  us — it  must  matter ' 

Mr.  Luke  leaned  forwards  towards  Lady 
Grace,  and  spoke  to  her  in  a  confidential 
whisper. 

'  Not  two  straws — not  that,'  he  said  with 
a  smile,  and  a  very  slight  fillip  of  his  finger 
and  thumb. 

Lady  Grace  was  thunderstruck. 

•  But,'    again    she    stammered  softly  and 


288  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

eagerly,    '  unless  you    say    there  is    no    per- 
sonal  ' 

Mr.  Luke  hated  the  word /rrj-^*;/*?/ ;  it  was 
so  much  mixed  up  in  his  mind  with  theology, 
that  he  even  winced  if  he  had  to  speak  of 
personal  talk. 

*  My  dear  Lady  Grace,'  he  said,  in  a  tone  of 
surprised  remonstrance,  '  you  are  talking  like 
a  Bishop.' 

*  Well,  certainly,'  said  Lady  Grace,  rising, 
and  struggling,  she  hardly  knew  how,  into  a 
smile,  '  nolo  episcopari.  You  see  I  do  know 
a  little  Latin,  Mr.  Luke.' 

'  Yes,'  said  Mr.  Luke  with  a  bow,  as  he 
pushed  back  a  chair  for  her,  '  and  a  bit  that? 
has  more  wisdom  in  it  than  all  other  ecclesi- 
astical Latin  put  together.' 

'  We're  going  to  leave  you  gentlemen  to 
smoke  your  cigarettes,'  said  Lady  Grace. 
'  We  think  of  going  down  on  the  beach  for  a 
little,  and  looking  at  the  sea,  which  is  getting 
silvery ;  and  by-and-by,  I  dare  say  you  will 
not  expel  us  if  we  come  back  for  a  little  tea 
and  coffee.' 

'  Damn  it ! ' 

Scarcely  had  the  last  trailing  skirt  swept 
glimmering  out  of  the  pavilion  into  the 
mellow  slowly-brightening  moonlight,  than 
the  gentlemen  were  astounded  by  this  sudden 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  L  289 

and  terrible  exclamation.  It  was  soon  found 
to  have  issued  from  Mr.  Saunders,  who  had 
hardly  spoken  more  than  a  few  sentences 
during  the  whole  of  dinner. 

'  What  can  be  the  matter  ? '  was  enquired 
by  several  voices. 

'  My  fool  of  a  servant,'  said  Mr.  Saunders 
sullenly,  '  has,  I  find,  in  packing,  wrapped  up 
a  small  sponge  of  mine  in  my  disproof  of 
God's  existence.' 

'  H'f/  shuddered  Mr.  Rose,  shrinking 
from  Mr.  Saunders's  somewhat  piercing  tones, 
and  resting  his  forehead  on  his  hand,  '  my 
head  aches  sadly.  I  think  I  will  go  down  to 
the  sea,  and  join  the  ladies.' 

'  I,'  said  Mr.  Saunders,  '  if  you  will  ex- 
cuse me,  must  go  and  see  in  what  state  the 
document  is,  as  I  left  it  drying,  hung  on  the 
handle  of  my  jug.' 

No  sooner  had  Mr.  Saunders  and  Mr. 
Rose  departed  than  Dr.  Jenkinson  began  to 
recover  his  equanimity  somewhat.  Seeing 
this,  Mr.  Storks,  who  had  himself  during 
dinner  been  first  soothed  and  then  ruffled 
into  silence,  found  suddenly  the  strings  of 
his  tongue  loosed. 

'  Now,  those  are  the  sort  of  young  fellows,' 
he  said,  looking  after  the  retreating  form  of 
Mr.  Saunders,  '  that  really  do  a  good  deal  to 

u 


290  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

bring  all  solid  knowledge  into  contempt  in 
the  minds  of  the  half-educated.  There's  a 
certain  hall  in  London,  not  far  from  the  top 
of  Regent  Street,  where  I'm  told  he  gives 
Sunday  lectures.' 

'  Yes,'  said  Dr.  Jenkinson,  sipping  his 
claret,  '  it's  all  very  bad  taste — very  bad  taste.' 

'  And  the  worst  of  it  is,'  said  Mr.  Storks, 
'  that  these  young  men  really  get  hold  of  a 
fact  or  two,  and  then  push  them  on  to  their 
own  coarse  and  insane  conclusions — which 
have,  I  admit,  to  the  vulgar  eye,  the  look  of 
being;  obvious.' 

'  Yes,'  said  Dr.  Jenkinson,  with  a  seraphic 
sweetness,  '  we  should  always  suspect  every- 
thing that  seems  very  obvious.  Glaring  in- 
consistencies and  glaring  consistencies  are 
both  sure  to  vanish  if  you  look  closely  into 
them.' 

'  Now,  all  that  about  God,  for  instance,' 
Mr.  Storks  went  on,  '  is  utterly  uncalled  for  ; 
and,  as  young  Saunders  puts  it,  is  utterly  mis- 
leading.' 

'Yes,'  said  Dr.  Jenkinson,  'it  rt;// depends 
upon  the  way  you  say  it.' 

'  I  hardly  think,'  said  Mr.  Stockton  with 
a  sublime  weariness,  '  that  we  need  waste 
much  thought  upon  his  way.  It  is  a  very 
common  one. — that  of  the  puppy  that  barks 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  I.  291 

at  the  heels  of  the  master  whose  meat  it 
steals.' 

*  May  I,'  said  Mr.  Herbert  gently,  after 
a  moment's  pause,  '  ask  this,  for  I  am  a  little 
puzzled  here.  Do  I  understand  that  Mr. 
Saunders's  arguments  may  be  held,  on  the 
face  of  the  thing,  to  disprove  the  existence  of 
God?' 

Mr.  Storks  and  Mr.  Stockton  both  stared 
gravely  on  Mr.  Herbert  ;  and  said  nothing. 
Dr.  Jenkinson  stared  at  him  too  ;  but  the 
Doctor's  eye  lit  up  into  a  little  sharp  twinkle 
of  benign  content  and  amusement,  and  he 
said — 

'No,  Mr.  Herbert,  I  don't  think  Mr. 
Saunders  can  disprove  that,  nor  anyone  else 
either.  For  the  world  has  at  present  no 
adequate  definition  of  God  ;  and  I  think  we 
should  be  able  to  define  a  thing  before  we 
can  satisfactorily  disprove  it.  I  think  so.  I 
have  no  doubt  Mr.  Saunders  can  disprove  the 
existence  of  God,  as  he  would  define  Him. 
All  atheists  can  do  that.' 

•'  Ah,'  murmured  Mr.  Stockton,  '  nobly 
said ! ' 

'  But  that's  not  the  way,'  the  Doctor  went 

on,  '  to  set  to  work — this  kind  of  rude  denial. 

We  must  be  loyal  to  nature.     We  must  do 

nothing  per  saUum.     We  must  be  patient. 

u  2 


292  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

We  mustn't  leap  at  Utopias,  either  religious 
or  irreligious.  Let  us  be  content  with  the 
knowledge  that  all  dogmas  will  expand  in 
proportion  as  we  feel  they  need  expansion ; 
for  all  mere  forms  are  transitory,,  and  even  the 
personality  of ' 

Fatal  word !  It  was  like  a  match  to  a 
cannon. 

'  Ah,  Jenkinson,'  exclaimed  Mr.  Luke,  and 
Dr.  Jenkinson  stopped  instantly, '  we  see  what 
you  mean  ;  and  capital  sense  it  is  too.  But 
you  do  yourself  as  much  as  anyone  else  a 
great  injustice,  in  not  seeing  that  the  age  is 
composed  of  two  parts,  and  that  the  cultured 
minority  is  infinitely  in  advance  of  the  Phil- 
istine majority — which  alone  is,  properly 
speaking,  the  present ;  the  minority  being 
really  the  soul  of  the  future  waiting  for  its 
body,  which  at  present  can  exist  only  as  a 
Utopia.  It  is  the  wants  of  this  soul  that  we 
have  been  talking  over  this  afternoon.  When 
the  ladies  come  back  to  us,  there  are  several 
things  that  I  should  like  to  say;  and  then 
you  will  see  what  we  mean,  Jenkinson — and 
that  even  poor  Rose  has  really  some  right 
on  his  side.' 

At  the  mention  of  Mr.  Rose's  name  the 
Doctor's  face  again  curdled  into  frost. 

'  I  don't  think  so.'      That  was  all  he  said. 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  11.  293 


CHAPTER  II. 

rE  could  really,  Mr.  Luke,  almost 
fancy  that  we  heard  the  Sirens 
singing,  just  now,'  said  Mrs. 
Sinclair,  when  the  ladies  of  the 
party  had  returned  from  their  ramble  on  the 
shore,  with  Mr.  Rose  amongst  them,  like 
Apollo  leading  the  Muses. 

The  coloured  lamps  were  now  glowing 
brightly,  with  their  green  and  purple  clusters  ; 
the  table  was  glittering  under  them,  a  wilder- 
ness of  enchanted  sparklings  ;  and  outside  the 
moonlight  was  bathing  everything,  the  roof 
and  pillars  of  the  pavilion,  the  myrtles,  and 
the  multitudes  of  crowding  roses,  which 
trembled  just  a  little  in  the  air  that  they 
themselves  scented. 

'  Yes,'  Mrs.  Sinclair  said,  whilst  there  were 
some  arrangements  going  on  amongst  the 
others  with  shawls  and  opera-cloaks,  '  I  never 
saw  anything  like  the  sea  to-night.  Far  off 
the  spray  amongst  the  rocks  looked  like  mer- 
maids playing;    and  at  our  feet  it  seemed 


294  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

as  if  the  little  pale  waves  were  whispering 
and  siofhino^  messaofes  to  us,  I  don't  think  I 
should  like  to  tell  quite  all  I  thought  they 
said  to  me.  And  listen,'  she  cried  with  a  faint 
sigh,  '  is  not  that  the  nightingale  ?  It  is — I 
am  certain  it  is  ! — 

The  same  that  oft-times  hath 
Charmed  magic  casements  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas  in  faery  lands  forlorn.' 

What  a  night  it  is,  to  be  sure  !  We  all  felt 
down  on  the  beach  as  if  we  were  literally 
breathing  in  Romance — or — well,  I  don't 
know  what  the  right  word  is.' 

'And  I,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  'have  been  ex- 
plaining to  them,  that,  had  they  lived  in  any 
other  age,  they  would  have  felt  nothing  of  all 
this  ;  that  they  feel  it,  by  virtue  of  senses  that 
have  only  been  acquired  in  ours.' 

'  Yes,'  said  Mr.  Luke,  clearing  his  throat  ; 
'  that's  quite  true,  and  I  want  now  to  try  and 
explain  clearly  how  and  why  it  is  true.  I 
was  particularly  anxious,'  he  said  in  a  whisper 
to  Laurence  as  he  drew  his  chair  forward,  '  to 
speak  of  this  when  your  Roman  Catholic 
friend  was  here ;  as  she  seems  a  very  in- 
telligent young  lady,  and  is,  I  have  no  doubt, 
fully  alive  to  some  of  the  grotesquenesses  of 
what  she  considers  to  be  her  creed.' 

*  Keats,  Ode  to  the  Nightingale. 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  11.  295 

Mr.  Luke  resettled  himself.  On  one  side 
of  him  was  Miss  Merton,  in  a  pale  blue  opera 
cloak,  bordered  with  white  fur,  and  embroi- 
dered with  gold,  something  in  her  large  eyes 
of  a  subdued  sadness  ;  and  on  the  other  side 
was  Mrs.  Sinclair,  all  in  white,  who  looked 
like  a  wood-anemone  against  a  background 
of  dark  foliage. 

'  Now,'  Mr.  Luke  continued,  raising  his 
voice  a  little,  but  speaking  with  a  more 
mellow  persuasiveness  than  usual,  '  we  all  of 
us  feel,  in  a  general  way — I  think  I  may  say 
that  we  nearly  all  of  us  feel — that  the  cul- 
tured minority  of  the  present  age  is  endowed 
with  feelings,  sentiments,  and  powers  of  in- 
sight, not  only  in  advance  of  its  common 
contemporaries,  but  in  advance  of  all  preced- 
ing times.  We  understand  natural  beauty, 
and  natural  affections,  and  above  all  moral 
beauty,  in  a  new  way,  all  our  own.  Now,  to 
what  is  the  advance  due  ?  It  is  all  due  to  cul- 
ture in  its  highest  connection — its  connection 
with  religion.  We  feel  stronger  emotions 
about  natural  scenery,  for  just  the  same  reason 
that  we  feel  stronger  emotions  about  righte- 
ousness. And  the  reason  is,  that  our  emo- 
tions, in  either  case,  no  longer  tempt  us  to 
draw  grotesque  inferences  from  themselves. 
There's  the  whole  heart  of  the  matter.     We 


296  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

rest  gratefully  content  with  the  objects  that 
excite  our  love ;  we  don't  pass  away  beyond 
them,  and  forget  them.  You  had  an  excel- 
lent instance  of  the  old  treatment  I  condemn  in 
those  verses  of  Euripides  which  Mr.  Laurence 
has  translated  with  so  much  tenderness. 
There,  you  see,  you  have  nature — flowers, 
meadows,  and  so  forth  ;  and  more  important 
still,  you  have  a  high  conception  of  virtue. 
But  yet  in  that  poem  you  have  no  real  feel- 
ing for  either  the  flowers  or  the  virtue.  The 
feeling  only  grazes  these,  so  to  speak,  and 
glances  off  to  a  shadowy  deity  beyond,  who 
was  no  more  true,  no  more  verifiable,  than 
any  of  the  rest  of  her  kind,  male  or  female, 
singular  or  triple.  And  now,'  Mr.  Luke 
went  on,  turning  to  Miss  Merton,  '  here  is 
another  illustration  of  the  whole  thing — of 
the  advance  made  by  culture  in  our  entire 
mental  state,  of  which  I  particularly  wanted 
to  talk  to  you  (for  in  one  point  at  least  we 
agree,  even  professedly — the  doctrine  of  de- 
velopment), and  this  is  an  illustration  of  it  that 
you  in  a  special  way  will  appreciate.  Yoti, 
of  course,'  said  Mr.  Luke,  'know  something 
more  or  less  about  St.  Augustine,  I  suppose.' 
As  it  was  with  her  reading  that  Father's 
account  of  his  conversion  that  Miss  Merton 
in  a  peculiar  way  associated  her  own,   she 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  11.  297 

looked  at  Mr.  Luke  with  increased  interest, 
feeling  at  the  same  time  that  she  had  cer- 
tainly as  much  knowledge  on  the  subject  as 
he  so  generously  gave  her  credit  for. 

'  Well,'  Mr.  Luke  went  on,  '  Augustine 
was  on  the  whole,  you  know,  the  most  cul- 
tured of  all  the  Fathers,  and,  considering  the 
early  date  at  which  he  lived,  had  in  some 
ways  a  real  insight  into  Christianity  ;  so  we 
may  safely  consider  him  as  the  most  favour- 
able specimen  of  the  results  of  the  old  system. 
Let  us  take  then  the  purest  and  most  elevat- 
ing of  all  the  pleasures  of  life,  and  enquire, 
through  him,  how  it  is  treated  and  looked 
upon  by  theological  Christianity.  The  eyes, 
says  Augustine,  love  fair  and  various  forms, 
and  shining  and  lovely  colours  ;  and  all  day 
long  they  are  before  me,  and  solicit  my  con- 
templation. "  For  "  (and  this  exquisite  sen- 
tence I  remember  in  his  very  words)  "  the 
Light,  that  queen  of  colours,  bathing  all  that 
we  can  look  upon,  from  morning  till  evening, 
let  me  go  where  I  will,  will  still  keep  gliding 
by  me  in  unnumbered  guises,  and  soothes  me 
whilst  I  am  busy  at  other  things,  and  am 
thinking  nothing  of  her."  '  ^ 

Miss  Merton  was  pleased  at  the  apprecia- 

'  Vide  Aug.  Con/.  1.  ix.  c.  34. 


298  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

tive  tone  in  which  Mr,   Luke  quoted.      Mr. 
Luke  noticed  this,  and  he  was  pleased  also. 

'  And  now,'  he  continued,  '  what  return 
does  our  gentleman  make  to  the  light  for 
its  beautiful  and  constant  service  to  him  ? 
Does  he  thank  it  ?  does  he  praise  it  ?  does 
he  seek  it  ?  No — '  Mr.  Luke  here  gave  a 
little  laugh — '  not  a  bit  of  it !  He  prays  to 
his  God  that  he  may  be  delivered  from  its 
insidious  snares ;  he  envies  the  blindness  of 
Tobit,  and  describes  himself  as  "  earnestly 
groaning "  under  the  temptations  of  these 
eyes  of  his  flesh.  That  is  all !  There,'  said 
Mr.  Luke,  with  a  confident  appeal  to  Miss 
Merton,  whose  expression  was  now  slightly 
altering,  '  we  have  in  a  most  pointed  form 
the  barbarising  results  of  the  old  theological 
religion.  And  now,  put  side  by  side  with 
this,  the  following  expression  of  the  religion 
of  sweet  reason,  such  as  culture  reveals  it  to 
us.  It  deals  with  exactly  the  same  sense, 
and  the  same  pleasures  : — 

What  soul  was  his,  when,  from  the  naked  top 

Of  some  bold  headland,  he  beheld  the  sun 

Rise  up,  and  bathe  the  world  in  light  !     He  looked  — 

Ocean  and  earth,  the  solid  frame  of  earth 

And  ocean's  liquid  mass  beneath  him  lay 

In  gladness  and  deep  joy.     The  clouds  were  touched, 

And  in  their  silent  faces  could  be  read 

Unutterable  love.     Sound  needed  none. 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  II. 


299 


Nor  any  voice  of  joy  ;  his  spirit  drank 
The  spectacle  :  sensation,  soul,  and  form, 
All  melted  into  him  ;  they  swallowed  up 
His  animal  being  ;  in  them  did  he  live, 
And  by  them  did  he  live  ;  they  were  his  life. 
In  such  access  of  mind,  in  such  high  hour 
Of  visitation  from  the  living  God, 
Thought  was  not;  in  enjoyment  it  expired  ; 
No  thanks  he  breathed,  he  proffered  no  request.' 

A  sudden  sigh  here  escaped  from  some 
one.     Mr.  Luke  looked  round. 

'  Ah,'  exclaimed  Mr.  Stockton,  '  what  a 
description  of  prayer  !  What  a  noble,  what 
a  magnificent  description  ! ' 

The  fashion  of  Mr.  Luke's  countenance 
changed.  He  stopped  short,  he  would  not 
proceed  a  word  farther.  His  whole  quota- 
tion had  been  ruined,  he  felt,  by  this  odious 
interruption. 

'  I  never  supposed,'  said  Miss  Merton, 
who  thought  Mr.  Luke  pausing  that  she 
might  give  in  her  acquiescence,  '  I  never  sup- 
posed St.  Augustine's  views  quite  final  upon 
all  matters.  I  dare  say  there  are  some 
things  that  even  I  could  have  taught  him.' 

She  smiled  as  she  said  this  ;  but  there 
was  a  little  embarrassment  in  her  tone  which 
was  perceived  by  Laurence,  and  which 
brought  him  at  once  to  her  rescue. 

'  Vide  Wordsworth,  Excursion,  Book  i. 


300  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

*  1/  he  said,  '  think  the  contrast  Mr.  Luke 
has  drawn  even  stronger  than  he  has  made 
it.  I  by  no  means  think  that  Augustine 
was  afraid  of  the  pleasures  of  Hght  and 
sight  as  they  were  enjoyed  by  Wordsworth  ; 
for  I  can  hardly  fancy  that  he  could  have  had 
the  least  conception  of  them.  They  seem  to 
me  a  new  and  peculiar  heritage,  which  ive 
may  all  more  or  less  have  part  in  ;  but  which 
by  former  ages  were  undreamt  of,  not  re- 
jected. I  often  myself  look  back  on  a  certain 
early  walk  I  took  one  spring  morning  in  these 
gardens — amongst  the  very  trees  and  flower- 
beds we  are  now  looking  out  upon.  The  fresh 
softness  that  was  in  the  air,  and  all  the  wan- 
dering scents,  like  dreams  or  prophecies  of 
summers  gone  or  coming,  and  the  wet  light 
glistening  on  the  dewy  leaves,  seemed  to  go 
at  once  to  the  soul — to  "  melt  into  me,"  as 
into  Wordsworth's  herdsman.  Once  I  sur- 
prised myself  stooping  under  a  dripping 
bough,  to  look  upwards  at  a  yellow  flower, 
and  watch  it  lonely  against  a  background  of 
blue  sky  ;  and  once  I  started  to  And  myself 
quite  lost  in  staring  at  a  red  rock,  gleaming 
amongst  shrubs  and  ivy,  which  a  plant  of 
periwinkle  spangled  with  a  constellation  of 
purple  stars.  The  colour,  the  shape,  the  smell 
of  every   leaf  and    flower — each  seemed  to 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  II.  301 

touch  me  like  a  note  of  music ;  and  the 
bloom  of  morning  mist  was  over  everything.' 

'  Ah,'  said  Mrs.  Sinclair,  her  dark  eyes 
gleaming  in  the  moonlight,  '  how  those  spring 
mornings  sometimes  make  one  sick  with 
longing ! ' 

*  Yes,'  said  Laurence,  '  with  longing — 
with  a  vague  longing ;  not  always,  I  am 
afraid,  with  thanksgiving  or  with  praise.  But 
I  think  the  feelinsf  in  all  its  moods  is  the  same 
in  some  ways.  It  is  a  mixing  together  of 
outward  and  inward  things — our  whole  inward 
lives  passing  out  of  us  into  Nature  ;  Nature 
melting  into  us,  and  growing  part  of  our  in- 
ward lives,  so  that  all  our  hopes  and  fears 
and  memories  become  embodied  things, 
touching  us  in  scents  of  flowers,  in  the  breath 
of  the  air,  in  the  sparkle  of  water,  or  mixing, 
like  Hamadryads,  their  beings  with  the  trees. 
Now,  could  I  have  described  such  feelings  as 
these — my  own  state  of  mind  during  my 
morning  walk — to  Saint  Augustine,  he  would 
not  have  understood  me.  He  would  have 
thought  me  raving.  And  my  case  is  not 
peculiar.  These  feelings  are  no  private  things 
of  my  own.  They  belong  to  our  whole  age. 
And  of  this,'  Laurence  went  on,  'you  may 
see  a  very  curious  proof  in  a  part  of  our 
modern  literature,  which  as  literature  is  least 


302  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

successful.  I  mean,  a  certain  class  of  novels  : 
not  the  works  of  the  greater  novelists,  still 
less  the  works  of  the  professional  novel- 
manufacturers  ;  not  these,  but  a  sort  of  pro- 
duction almost  peculiar  to  our  own  time — the 
novels  of  amateurs,  who  write  perhaps  but  a 
single  book  during  their  whole  lives  ;  and 
that  one,  with  the  simple  aim  of  pouring  out 
their  own  feelings  for  themselves  to  contem- 
plate, or  of  explaining  to  themselves  or  others 
their  own  histories.' 

'  And  so,'  said  Mr.  Storks,  '  you  would 
gauge  the  refinement  of  the  age  by  its  silliest 
novels  ? ' 

*  I  think  we  too  often  forget,'  said 
Laurence,  'that  a  very  silly  book  may  be 
evidently  the  work  of  a  very  clever  person  ; 
and  may  show  its  author  possessed  of  every 
gift,  except  that  of  literature.  And  in  many 
of  the  poor  novels  I  am  speaking  of,  the 
utter  failure  of  the  expression  often  only  calls 
our  attention  more  strongly  to  the  depth,  the 
delicacy,  and  the  refinement  of  what  the 
writer  has  struggled  to  express.  I  was  read- 
ing a  girl's  novel  in  the  train  the  other  day, 
called  Love  in  a  Life.  Its  long  spasms  of 
ungrammatical  verbiage,  its  utter  want  of 
knowledge  of  the  world,  would  have  turned 
the  dullest  reviewer,  in  spite  of  himself,  into  a 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  11.  303 

caustic  wit.  But  there  was  a  something  all 
through  it,  that  its  authoress  was  trying — try- 
ing to  utter,  that  reminded  me  of  Ariel  try 
ing  to  escape  from  his  tree.  What,  Lady 
Ambrose  !  Have  yo2i,  written  a  novel  ? 
No  ?  Then  why  are  you  looking  so  mysteri- 
ous, and  so  full  of  meaning  ? ' 

'  Go  on,  Mr.  Laurence,'  said  Lady  Am- 
brose.     '  I'll  show  you  by-and-by.' 

*  Well,'  said  Laurence,  '  take  any  one  of 
these  novels,  and  you  will  find  the  writer 
looking  on  Nature  in  just  that  peculiar 
modern  way  that  we  have  been  talking  of. 
I  don't  say  you  will  always  find  the  senti- 
ment in  the  books,  but  the  books  will  show 
you  that  you  would  find  it  in  the  writers. 
And  this  feeling  about  Nature  is  but  an 
example  of  others.  Take,  as  I  said,  the 
modern  conception  of  love,  and  study  that 
too,  in  these  foolish  novels.  You  will  find 
half  the  folly  comes  from  an  attempt  to 
express  much,  not  from  success  in  expressing 
little.' 

A  pause  followed  this.  It  was  broken  at 
last  by  Allen. 

'  I  quite  agree  with  Mr.  Laurence,'  he 
said  diffidently.  '  I  have  not  much  right  to 
judge,  I  dare  say.  I  am  not  a  great  reader  ; 
and  I  can  only  speak  from  books.     But  still 


304  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

I  know  a  little  of  the  love  poetry  of  this  and 
of  other  times  ;  and  the  poetry  of  this  has 
always  seemed  to  me  far — far  the  highest. 
It  has  seemed  to  me  to  give  the  passion  so 
much  more  meaning,  and  such  a  much 
greater  influence  over  all  life.  And  this.  I 
suppose,  must  be  because  men,  as  the  world 
goes  on,  are  really  learning  to  love  in  a 
higher  way  than  perhaps  they  themselves 
are  often  conscious  of.' 

*  I  think  some  philosopher,'  murmured 
Mrs.  Sinclair  to  Leslie,  '  says  we  feel  that  we 
are  ereater  than  we  know.  It  must  be  a 
great  comfort  sometimes  to  know  that  we 
are  greater  than  we  feel.' 

'  Is  it  not  Novalis,'  went  on  Allen,  'who 
says  that  if  all  the  human  race  were  a  single 
pair  of  lovers,  the  difference  between  mysti- 
cism and  non- mysticism  would  cease  .'* 
Would  that  have  been  understood  even  a 
hundred  years  ago  ?  But  as  to  poets,  I  was 
thinking  of  two  English  poets  of  our  own 
day  especially.  Shakespeare  may  of  course 
have  exhibited  the  working  of  love  more 
powerfully  than  they  ;  yet  I  am  sure  he  could 
never  have  conceived  its  meaning  and 
its  nature  so  deeply.  No  heroine  of  his 
could  have  understood  Mrs.  Browning's 
Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese  ;  nor  any  hero  of 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  II.  305 

his  her  husband's  love  lyrics.  What  seems 
to  me  the  thing  so  peculiarly  modern,  is  this 
notion  of  love  as  something  which,  once 
truly  attained,  would,  as  Browning  says, 

make  Time  break, 
Letting  us  pent-up  creatures  through 
Into  Eternity,  our  due. ' ' 

*  Ah  !'  murmured  Mrs.  Sinclair,  'but  sup- 
pose there  is  no  eternity  !  I  think  we  had 
better  take  what  we  can,  and  be  thankful. 
Listen — listen  again!  "The  nightingales, 
the  nightingales!  "  There,  Lord  Allen,  there 
is  a  bit  of  your  Mrs.  Browning  for  you.' 

'  What,  Lord  Allen ! '  said  Lady  Am- 
brose, '  and  is  Mr.  Robert  Browning  a 
better  poet  than  Shakespeare  ?  I  always 
thought  Shakespeare  was  quite  our  best.' 

'  It  is  not  a  question,'  said  Laurence,  as 
Allen  did  not  speak,  '  of  different  poets,  but 
of  different  ages.  I  have  often  wondered 
myself  how  far  Faust  would  have  appealed  to 
the  author  of  Hamlet,  and  whether  all  the 
spiritual  action  of  the  drama,  in  so  far  as  it 
relates  to  the  heroine,  might  not  be  lost  upon 
him.  What  a  difference  between  Margaret 
and  Ophelia — not  between  themselves,  but 
between  the  parts  they  play  !     Shakespeare 

1  Vide  Mr.  R.  Browning's  Dis  alitcr  visum. 
X 


3o6  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

himself  might  have  understood  Margaret's 
influence.  I  doubt  it.  But  even  if  he  had, 
that  would  prove  little.     Shakespeare's  was 

The  prophetic  soul 
Of  the  wide  world  dreaming  on  things  to  come  \ ' 

and  the  *'  wide  world  "  of  his  time  would  it- 
self have  understood  nothing  of  it.  But  what 
strikes  me  still  more  than  the  growth  of  par- 
ticular feelings,  is  the  infusion  and  the  inter- 
penetration  of  all.  Look  at  Shakespeare's 
Sonnets.  He  loved  the  objects  they  were 
addressed  to  ;  he  loved  flowers  and  Nature. 
But  these  two  sets  of  things  were  connected 
only  in  his  mind,  they  were  not  fnsed.  Take, 
however,  that  most  typical  of  all  modern 
poems  — the  celebrated  love-song  in  Mated, 
and  think  of  that : — 

The  slender  acacia  would  not  shake 

One  long  milk-bloom  on  the  tree  ; 
The  white  lake-blossom  fell  into  the  lake, 

And  the  pimpernel  dozed  on  the  lea  ; 
But  the  rose  was  awake  all  night  for  your  sake, 

Knowing  your  promise  to  me  ; 
The  lilies  and  roses  were  all  awake, 

They  sighed  for  the  dawn  and  thee. 

What  a  passion  is  here  !  We  almost  hear  the 
lover's  pulses  as  they  painfully  beat  quicker. 
Our     breath     catches    with    his  ;     and    we 

^  Vide  Shakespeare,  Sonnet  cvii. 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  II.  307 

long  and  long  with  his  longing.  And  yet 
hardly  a  word  about  his  feelings  is  said 
directly.  The  secret  is  echoed  back  to  us 
from  the  scene  and  from  the  summer  nieht. 
It  is  the  milk-bloom  of  the  acacia,  the  musk 
of  the  roses,  the  stir  of  the  morningf  breeze, 
that  tells  it  all  to  us  as  if  they  were  living 
things,  and  as  if  a  human  passion  had  passed 
into  them  for  a  soul.  Now,  would  the  world 
have  understood  this  in  any  other  times  but 
ours  ?  I  don't  think  even  Shakespeare's 
Jessica  would,  nor  Dante's  Beatrice,  nor 
Petrarch's  Laura,  nor  Horace's  Lydia,  nor 
Plato's  Diotima,  nor  Homer's  Helen.' 

'  Listen  ! '  exclaimed  Mr.  Rose  eagerly, 
as  soon  as  Laurence  stopped  ;  '  will  you  let 
me  read  one  passage  out  of  my  work  which 
bears  upon  this  very  point — in  fact,  sums  up 
exactly  what  you  have  been  saying }  It 
occurs,' said  Mr.  Rose,  who  was  sitting  ready 
under  one  of  the  lamps  with  some  printer's 
proofs  before  him,  '  in  my  Essay  on  Capacity. 
''Bzit  c/nef" — this  is  the  passage  I  mean — 
'' BtU  chief  amongst  the  new  things  which  the 
heart  of  man  has  come  to  the  under staitding  of 
is  the  passion  of  love,  in  its  distinctly  modern 
form.  The  goddess  of  this  love  is  no  longer 
the  Aphrodite  of  the  Greeks,  or  the  Mary  of 
the  Christians.      She  is  a  fnysteriotcs  hybrid 

X2 


3o8  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

beings  in  whose  vcitis  is  the  blood  of  doth  of 
them.  She  is  Mary  in  her  desire  of  the 
Creator  ;  she  is  Aphrodite  in  her  desire  of  the 
creature  ;  and  in  her  desire  of  the  creation^  she 
is  also  Artemis^  '  ('  Oh,  this  will  never  do — 
this  will  never  Ao  V  muttered  Dr.  Jenkinson  to 
himself,  tapping  with  his  feet  on  the  ground.) 
'  "  Into  the  strange  passion',' '  Mr.  Rose 
went  on,  '"  of  zvhich  hers  is  the  tutelage,  the7'e 
have  melted  the  sounds  of  woods  and  of 
zuaters,  and  the  shapes  and  the  hues  of  7notin- 
tains,  and  the  savour  of  airs  and  winds,  and 
the  odours  of  all  flozuers.  All  the  joys,  indeed, 
of  the  senses  have  fallen  into  it,  like  streams 
into  one  sea.  And  ivith  the  joys  of  the  spirit 
it  has  been  likeivise.  But  whereas  the  senses 
have  co?itributed  their  joys  mainly,  the  spirit 
has  contributed  its  sorrozvs  and  pains  as  well. 
Throughout  this  love,  despite  its  fulness  of  life, 
there  yet  runs  also  a  constant  taint  of  death, 
of  which  it  needs  cleansing — grotesque  troubles 
and  misgivings  of  conscience,  and  cloistral 
meditations,  and  fantastic  repentances.  For  this 
very  reason,  however,  is  it  the  nwre  zvholly  ex- 
pressive to  us  of  the  vuiii  s  inner  developmejd. 
It  shozvs  us  hozv  all  his  desires,  senses,  and 
pozvers  of  feeling  have  beeit  grozving  together, 
and  coalescing  into  a  single  organism,  capable 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  II.  309 

of  quite  new  sets  of  pleasures,  and  respond- 
ing to  far  finer  movements  from  withonty  ' 

'  H'm,'  said  Mr.  Luke  slowly,  in  a  tone  of 
meditative  commendation,  '  there's  a  great 
deal  of  truth  in  that — a  very  great  deal — if 
the  fellow,'  he  added  to  himself,  '  would  only 
put  it  a  little  better.' 

*  Are  you  quite  sure,'  said  Dr,  Jenkinson, 
looking  round  him  in  an  agony  of  suppressed 
irritation,  '  that  anyone  at  all  feels  all  these 
things,  beyond  the  very  few  people  who  talk 
about  them  ? ' 

'  Yes,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  smiling  with  a 
honeyed  gravity,  and  wholly  unconscious  of 
the  Doctor's  animus,  '  all  feel  thus  who  have 
any  part  or  lot  in  the  world's  development.' 

'  You,'  said  the  Doctor,  turning  sharply 
away  from  Mr.  Rose,  '  think  so,  Laurence, 
don't  you,  because  you  find  some  of  the  same 
sort  of  phrases  in  novels  ?  I  don't  think  you'll 
find  very  much  thought  in  those  novels — not 
very  much.  They  are  effeminate  foolish 
books.' 

'  Yes,'  said  Allen  with  an  assenting  voice 
that  much  pleased  the  Doctor,  '  a  great  deal 
of  this  increased  depth  and  refinement  ot 
feeling,  I  know,  is  very  good — all  of  it,  I 
dare  say,  may  be.  But  still,  if  left  to  itself,  it 
must  tend — indeed,  I  have  often  seen  it  tend 


3IO  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

' — to  make  men  effeminate,  as  Dr.  Jenkinson 
says,  and  unfit  for  work.  Now,  I  dare  say 
Mr.  Luke  will  call  me  a  barbarian,  but  I  am 
going-  to  venture  to  say  that,  in  spite  of  all 
that  is  said  against  it,  that  barbarous  thing 
sport — shooting,  deer-stalking,  hunting — is  of 
great  value,  especially  to  people  who  are  not 
barbarians,  as  a  kind  of  mental  tonic.  It 
makes  them  active  and  spirited — it  must  do 
so  :  it  gives  them  presence  of  mind,  and  a 
readiness  to  exert  themselves  ;  and  though 
sport  may  in  one  sense  be  a  self-indulgence, 
it  is  a  self-indulgence  that  is  constantly 
teachino"  all  sorts  of  self-denial.' 

o 

'  My  dear  Lord  Allen,'  said  Mr.  Luke, 
*  I  most  entirely  agree  with  you.  It  does 
seem,  I  admit,  at  first  sight,  a  somewhat 
singular  thing,  that  the  result  of  the  latest 
civilisation  should  be  to  give  men  leisure  to 
return  to  the  occupations  of  their  earliest 
barbarism — and  those  too  deprived  of  their 
one  justification — necessity.  But  still  these 
barbarous  sports  must,  as  you  say,  if  not 
pursued  too  exclusively,  give  a  valuable 
moral  tone  to  minds  whose  refinement  might 
else  become  weakness.  Only  the  worst  of  the 
matter,  as  it  actually  stands,  is  this — that  the 
majority  of  people  who  do  follow  sport,  are 
the  very  people  who  have  no  refinement  that 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  II.  311 

needs  strengthening,  but  merely  an  idle  aim- 
less strength  that  needs  refining.  And  you 
must  remember,  Lord  Allen,  that  the  man 
who  is  gluttonous  of  aimless  bodily  action  is 
no  better  than  the  man  who  is  an  epicure  in 
aimless  mental  emotion.' 

'  And  so,'  said  Donald  Gordon,  with 
devout  solemnity,  '  this  is  what  we  must 
remedy  in  our  new  Republic.  Our  gentle- 
men there  must  have  both  sides  of  their 
nature  developed  equally  ;  and  they  must  be 
at  once  so  intellectual  and  so  manly,  as  to  be 
content  that  partridges  and  foxes  shall  die 
exclusively  for  them,  without  their  living  ex- 
clusively for  partridges  and  foxes.' 

*  Exactly  so,'  said  Mr.  Luke  drily. 

'  Some  one  observed  this  afternoon/  said 
Allen,  turning  a  little  stififly  to  Donald  Gordon, 
'  how  one  could  see  the  expression  of  a  girl's 
face  changed  by  the  influence  of  a  little 
genuine  mental  culture.  I  have  noticed  the 
same  thing  in  men's  faces,  under  the  influence 
of  a  little  genuine  bodily  culture.  And 
I  think  myself  that  the  moors  of  your 
country,  or  a  river  in  Norway,  or  a  good 
cruise  in  a  yacht,  may  go — well,  at  least  half 
as  far  towards  making  a  complete  man,  as 
the  study  of  books,  and  art,  and  poetry,  in 
an  arm-chair,  or  in  a  picture-gallery.' 


312  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  I  think  that  is  so  true,'  said  Miss 
Mertcn  softly  to  him  in  a  whisper,  for  Dr. 
Jenkinson  had  begun  to  speak. 

'  But,'  the  Doctor  was  saying,  'you  must 
I  want  something  besides  looking  at  pretty 
'  scenery,  and  falling  in  love,  and  shooting.  I 
think  you  want  something  besides  that  to 
make  life  complete.  You  will  want  to  exer- 
cise your  intellect — your  reason.' 

'  Yes,'  said  Allen,  '  and  I  defend  all  this 
voluntary  physical  exercise  and  excitement, 
because  I  think  it  makes  the  mind  even  more 
healthy  than  it  does  the  body.' 

*  Yes,'  said  Dr.  Jenkinson  with  a  smile,  *  I 
think  that's  right.' 

'  You,  gentlemen,'  interposed  Lady  Grace, 
*  seem  to  be  taking  very  good  care  of  your- 
selves ;  but  are  we  women  to  shoot  and 
take  all  this  exercise  also  ? ' 

'  That,'  said  Mr.  Luke  with  a  courtly 
smile,  '  we  defer  to  your  superior  wisdom. 
There  are,  however,  two  helps  to  education, 
akin  to  exercise,  in  which  both  sexes  will 
share,  and  which  in  a  perfect  state  of  society 
would  be  most  important  in  their  results.  I 
mean  travelling,  and  the  halving  of  our  lives 
between  town  and  country.  The  completeness, 
the  many-sidedness  of  such  culture  as  there  is 
amongst  us,   is   in  a  great  measure  due   to 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  11.  313 

these ;  but  it  Is  only  slowly  that  we  are 
learning  to  use  them  properly.  Of  course, 
Jenkinson,  you  understand  all  this — no  man 
can  do  so  better.  It  is  simply  the  music  and 
gymnastic  of  the  Greeks.  It  is  simply  true 
education,  which  is  but  another  name  for 
culture.  And  in  the  cultivated  man,  thought, 
and  taste,  and  feeling,  and  spirit  are  really 
all  one,  and  fused  together.  Could  we  but 
look  forward  to  a  time  Avhen  all  or  even  the 
greater  part  of  those  one  meets  would  unite 
these  priceless  gifts,  there  might  then  indeed 
be  some  satisfaction  and  some  hope  in 
life.' 

'  And  don't  you  want  goodness  ? '  said 
Dr.  Jenkinson,  all  his  sharpness  returning  ; 
*  do  you  want  no  sense  of  duty,  and  right,  and 
wrong  ? ' 

'  Yes,'  said  Laurence,  '  but  we  have  in- 
cluded that  already.  We  have  found  that 
that  is  pre-supposed  in  every  educated 
pleasure.  It  is  that  that  gives  even  our 
lightest  conversation  its  best  sparkle,  and 
beads  its  surface  over  with  its  bright,  crisp 
foam  of  half-conscious  irony.  The  moral 
ideal  is  a  note,  as  it  were,  which  we  are 
always  hearing,  and  with  which  our  daily  talk 
makes  continual  harmonies,  because  it  is  never 
pitched    in    unison  with  it.     Thus    we   talk 


314  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

of  killing  time,  and  so  on,  as  being  the 
great  end  of  our  lives  ;  of  money  or  position 
being  the  only  thing  to  marry  for ;  and  of 
marriage  ties  as  if  they  were  always  a 
weariness,  or  a  grotesque  torture.' 

'  And  thus,'  said  Leslie,  '  we  say  a  man 
has  had,  par  excellence,  a  success,  when  he 
has,  for  his  own  selfish  pleasure,  done  a 
woman  the  greatest  injury  possible.' 

'  And  thus,'  said  Donald  Gordon  softly, 
'  when  he  does  not  tell  all  the  world  he 
has  done  so,  we  say  he  is  a  perfect  gentle- 
man.' 

'  And  do  you  want  no  religion  ? '  said 
Dr.  Jenkinson,  paying  no  attention  to  all 
this,  but  again  turning  to  Mr.  Luke. 

'  My  dear  Jenkinson,'  said  Mr.  Luke, 
'  you  and  I  agree  upon  these  matters  so  well, 
that  I  think  you  must  be  trying  to  misunder- 
stand us.  Can  religion  and  morals  be 
separated  ?  and  are  not  they  both  included  in 
what  we  mean  by  culture  ?  Is  it  not  in  virtue 
of  culture — of  that  nice  and  complex  discri- 
mination— that  we  can  tell  at  once  when  we 
come  across  a  genuine  logion  of  Jesus 
amongst  the  sayings  vulgarly  supposed  to  be 
most  distinctive  of  Him  ?  Think,  for  in- 
stance,' Mr.  Luke  continued,  '  what  a  beauti- 
ful and  profound  harmony   is  at  once  made 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  II.  315 

amongst  our  heartstrings,  if  culture  have 
really  tuned  them,  by  such  a  story  as  that  of 
the  woman  taken  in  adultery,  or  by  the 
parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  or  by  such  simple 
pregnant  sayings  as,  "  vTrdyoy  /cat  ep^oyiai  npo<; 
vjLta?,"  and  then  turn  for  a  moment  to  the 
theological  accounts  of  the  Trinity !  Why,' 
exclaimed  Mr.  Luke  with  a  sudden  jauntiness, 
'  to  sit  on  the  key-board  of  an  organ  would 
make  music  compared  to  the  discord,  the 
jangling,  the  string-breaking  that  Church 
Catechisms,  and  Athanasian  Creeds,  and 
Episcopal  speculations  on  the  personality  of 
the  Creator,  make  on  the  musical  instrument 
of  the  cultured  mind.  Ah,'  Mr.  Luke  con- 
tinued, '  could  the  Founder  of  Christianity 
only  have  found  men  of  more  culture  as  His 
immediate  disciples  and  reporters — could  He 
only    have    secured   a   biographer  as   simply 

honest  as  poor  Boswell  was Well,  well,  but 

it's  no  use  speculating  about  what  might  have 
been.  Religion  has  had  bad  times  hitherto, 
but  now  at  last  we — some  of  us,  at  least — are 
seeing  the  way  to  make  them  better ;  you 
yourself,  Jenkinson,  amongst  the  number. 
And  all  this  is  due  to  that  very  thing  which 
we  say  is  the  essence  of  the  best  human  life — 
culture ;  culture  which  is  neither  religion,  nor 
morality,  nor  taste,  nor  intellect,   nor  know- 


3i6  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

ledge,  nor  wide  reading,  but  the  single  result 
of  all — and  this,'  Mr.  Luke  added,  '  showing 
itself  to  the  full — doing  itself  complete  justice, 
through — as  our  friends  have  already  said — 
what  we  call  polish  and  high-breeding,  and 
refinement  of  manner,  and  of  manners.' 

'  Surely  you,'  said  Mr.  Stockton,  turning 
to  Dr.  Jenkinson  with  the  most  mollifying 
deference,  'must  agree  with  us  that  the  present 
century  has  seen  the  soul  of  man  widening 
out,  with  all  its  marvellous  powers,  and  dis- 
playing new  riches  of  beauty  like  an  unfolding 
flower.  But  whilst  we  value — and  none  can 
value  more  than  I — our  higher  flights  of 
imagination,  our  finer  forms  of  love,  and  poetry, 
and  worship,  I  am  not  blind  to  the  great 
agent  that  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  this  change. 
I  mean  the  emancipated  human  intellect, 
with  all  its  manifold  apparatus  of  discovery 
and  conquest — that  great  liberator  of  life,  and 
thought,  and  religion.' 

'  There  is  some  truth  in  that,'  said  Dr. 
Jenkinson,  not  ungraciously,  '  but  I  think  you 
are  all  putting  it  in  a  wrong  way.  And,  Luke,' 
he  added  with  a  little  more  causticity,  '  to 
understand  Christianity,  you  must  know 
something  of  other  religions  too.  You 
must  study  the  great  religions  of  the  East, 
and  compare  them  with  those  of  the  West. 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  II.  317 

No  religion  can  be  understood  by  its  own 
light  only.' 

'In  our  ideal  city,'  said  Mr.  Rose,  'as  I 
saw  it  in  my  brief  Apocalypse,  you  will  find  a 
home  and  a  temple  for  every  creed,  and  for 
every  form  of  worship.' 

'  What ! '  exclaimed  Lady  Ambrose,  '  does 
Dr.  Jenkinson  want  us  to  introduce  Juggernaut 
and  his  car  into  England  ? ' 

'  May  I  ask  you  one  question,'  broke  in 
Mr.  Herbert  suddenly,  '  a  question  which  at 
times,  I  confess,  seems  to  me  not  without 
importance  !  Will  this  religion  of  yours,  as 
you  told  us  in  the  afternoon  it  was  based  on 
the  discrimination  between  good  and  evil, 
also  involve  a  discrimination  between  life  and 
death  ?  Will  it,  I  mean,  point  to  any  other 
life  beyond  this,  or  will  it  not  ?  Is  whatever 
evil  and  sorrow  we  patiently  suffer,  a  thing 
which,  if  it  do  not  bring  its  reward  to  us  here, 
will  never  bring  us  any  reward  at  all  ?  And 
shall  we  call  the  death  of  the  noble  sufferer 
blessed  for  no  other  reason  than  that  he 
rests  from  his  labours  and  his  works  do 
not  follow  him  ?  ' 

'  Dear  me  !  dear  me  ! '  said  Dr.  Jenkinson 
petulantly  to  himself.  '  These  sort  of 
questions  ought    never  to  be  asked  in  that 


3i8  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

hard   abrupt  way.     You   can't  answer  them 
— you  can't  answer  them.' 

Tvlr.  Stockton,  however,  found  no  diffi- 
culty  with  his  answer. 

'  As  to  that,'  he  said,  '  each  man  would 
think  as  he  pleased,  and  his  thoughts  would 
shape  themselves  to  meet  the  deepest  needs 
of  his  life.  In  the  state  of  society  we  long 
for,  the  belief  in  a  future  life  would  be  open 
to  all  to  accept  or  to  reject.  The  only  thing 
to  guard  against  would  be  any  definite  public 
opinion  on  the  matter,  one  way  or  the  other  ; 
for  in  any  definite  public  opinion,  remember, 
there  is  the  germ  of  all  dogmatism  and  of  all 
persecution.  Public  opinion,  in  society  as  it 
ought  to  be,  would  be  a  frictionless  fluid,  if 
I  may  borrow  a  metaphor  from  science,  in 
which  no  adventitious  obstacle  from  prejudice 
or  otherwise  would  impede  the  progress  of 
any  view  that  its  own  merits  set  in  motion.' 

Mr.  Luke  was  certainly  an  unfortunate 
man.  Mr.  Stockton  had  again,  in  part  at 
least,  expressed  the  exact  thing  which  in 
other  words  he  was  going  to  have  said  him- 
self. Mr.  Luke,  however  did  not  flinch. 
He  boldly  took  the  bull  by  the  horns. 

'  True,'  he  said  ;  '  that  metaphor  is  inge- 
nious, and  explains  exactly  what  we  want  to 
explain.     That  is  one  of  the  great  conditions 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  11.  319 

of  a  truly  cultivated  society,  what  Mr.  Stock- 
ton calls  a  frictionless  public  opinion  —  a 
public  opinion  which  shall  let  every  system, 
every  creed,  every  philosophy  of  life,  stand 
or  fall  on  its  own  practical  verifiable  merits  ; 
and  this  we  shall  get,  too,  if  we  can  only 
banish  two  things,  prejudice  and  ignorance, 
of  which  last,'  Mr.  Luke  added,  looking 
studiously  away  from  Mr.  Stockton,  '  by  far 
the  deadliest  form  is  the  fetish-worship  of 
useless  knowledge.' 

'Well,'  said  Miss  Merton,  'I  suppose 
that  this  is  all  that  any  of  us  would  ask,  who 
really  and  truly  believe  in  what  we  profess 
to  believe.' 

'  Of  course  it  is,'  said  Mr.  Luke,  '  every- 
thing— everything.' 

'  And  I'm  quite  sure,'  said  Lady  Grace, 
*  that  in  a  society  where  the  tone  is  so  nobly 
liberal,  and  where  all  have  such  a  true  and 
burning  admiration  of  the  morally  beautiful, 
it  will  be  quite  impossible  that  woman's  life 
shall  not  be  seen  to  be  what  it  really  is — 
a  thing  as  capable  as  men's  of  high  aims,  and 
independent  purposes,  and  not,  as  it  were, 
entirely  sunk  in  theirs.  I,  Mr.  Luke,  in  face 
of  such  a  public  opinion  as  you  speak  of, 
should  have  little  fear  for  our  cause.  I  think, 
under  God,  it  would  prosper  there.' 


320  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  Of  course  it  would,'  said  Mr.  Luke.  *  If 
culture  enables  us  to  detect  beauty  and  to  prize 
it,  what  should  it  enable  us  to  prize  more 
than  womanhood,  with  all  its  exquisite  capa- 
bilities developed  to  their  utmost  ?  Life  has 
no  greater  ornament  than  cultured  woman- 
hood.' 

'  Except  cultured  manhood,'  said  Lady- 
Grace,  unconsciously  giving  Mr.  Luke  a 
slight  wound  by  her  generous  and  unex- 
pected return  of  his  royal  compliment.  '  Ah,' 
she  sighed  to  herself  with  a  look  at  Mr.  Luke, 
*  and  he  does  not  believe  in  God — or  thinks 
he  does  not !  I  suppose  it  must  needs  be 
that  offences  come  ;  but  I  wish  they  did  not 
come  by  such  good  men.  However — I 
trust  that  it  is  all  really  for  the  best.  And 
then — there  is  no  such  thing  as  eternal  punish- 
ment. One  may  be  thankful  to  feel  sure  of 
that.' 

'  I  am  afraid  you  will  think  me  very 
troublesome,'  said  Mr.  Herbert,  who  had 
been  talking  to  Laurence  in  a  low  tone  for 
the  last  few  minutes,  '  but  there  is  one  ques- 
tion more  I  should  like  to  ask  you.  I  want  to 
know  if  you,  who  see  the  many  delicate  beau- 
ties of  life,  and  the  countless  positions  it 
may  be  viewed  from, — I  want  to  know  if  you 
will  teach  the  lower,   the  commoner  classes, 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  II.  321 

who  look  up  to  you  as  models,  to  quote 
poetry,  and  to  be  enquiring  and  sceptical 
also  ? ' 

*  I  hope  not,  indeed,'  broke  in  Lady 
Ambrose  with  vigour;  'and  as  to  our  being 
their  models,  Mr.  Herbert,  I'm  sure  you  can't 
mean  that.  It  seems  to  me  one  of  the  very 
worst  things  in  these  times  that  they  will 
take  us  for  their  models.  However,  I  think 
it  is  really  a  good  deal  our  fault,  and  that  it 
comes  very  much  from  our  giving  our  maids 
so  many  of  our  old  clothes  to  wear.  That 
sort  of  thing  puts  notions  into  their  heads. 
Now,  here  at  any  rate  is  one  reform,  that  is 
implied  in  our  Republic  ; — I  don't  like  that 
word  Republic,  by  the  way — we  must  put  a 
stop  to  all  this  imitation  of  ourselves.  Isn't 
that  so,  Mr.  Laurence  ? ' 

'  Thank  you,  Lady  Ambrose,'  said  Mr. 
Herbert,  rising,  '  thank  you.  I  think  it  alto- 
gether a  wise — nay,  more  than  wise,  an  essen- 
tial thing,  to  keep  these  wide  speculations 
from  spreading  beyond  the  only  circles  that 
they  are  really  fitted  for.  I  have  to  go  in- 
doors now,  as  I  have  a  few  matters  to  arrange 
to-night  ;  but  I  am  much  obliged  to  you  all  for 
what  you  have  taught  me  about  culture,  and 
enlightenment,  and  society,  as  it  ought  to  be.' 

*  The  difficulty  is.'  said  Lady    Ambrose, 


322  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

as  Mr.  Herbert  was  walking  away,  '  how  to 
keep  all  this  thought,  and  so  forth,  to  our- 
selves. One  thing  I'm  quite  certain  of,  that 
we  really  do  a  great  deal  of  harm  without 
thinking  of  it,  by  the  way  in  which  we  speak 
our  minds  out  before  servants,  and  that  sort 
of  people,  without  in  the  least  considering 
what  may  come  of  it.  Now,  what  do 
you  think  of  this,  as  a  plan  for  making 
our  ideal  state  a  really  good  and  contented 
place  ? — the  upper  classes  should  speak  a 
different  language  from  the  lower  classes. 
Of  course  we  should  be  able  to  speak  theirs, 
but  they  would  not  be  able  to  speak  ours. 
And  then,  you  see,  they  would  never  hear  us 
talk,  or  read  our  books,  or  get  hold  of  our 
ideas  ;  which,  after  all,  is  what  does  all  the 
mischief.  And  yet,'  said  Lady  Ambrose 
with  a  sigh,  '  that's  not  the  great  difficulty. 
The  great  difficulty  would  be  about  daugh- 
ters and  younger  sons,  and  how  to  give 
them  all  enough  to  keep  them  going  in  the 
world.  However,  this  we  can  talk  of  in  a 
minute.  But — '  here  Lady  Ambrose  put  her 
hand  in  her  pocket,  and  a  sound  was  heard 
as  of  rustling  paper. 

'  I  really  do  believe,'  said  Laurence,  *  that 
Lady  Ambrose  has  written  a  novel,  although 
she  denies  it ;  and  there  she  is  going  to  read 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  It.  323 

a  bit  of  it  now,   as  a  specimen  of  her  own 
culture.' 

'  No,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  '  really  and 
truly.  And  if  I  had  written  a  novel,  Mr. 
Laurence,  I  should  not  have  the  cruelty  to 
inflict  it  upon  you.  No  ;  but  what  I  have 
here,'  she  said  at  last,  producing  a  manuscript, 
'  though  it  is  not  mine,  is  next  door  to  a 
novel,  and  in  some  respects  better  than  one. 
It  is  a  sort  of  memoir  of  herself,  written  by 
a  certain  lady  I  know.  I  am  betraying  no 
confidence  in  showing  it  to  you  ;  as  she  her- 
self has  lent  it  to  a  good  many  friends,  and 
as  long  as  her  name  is  not  mentioned,  she  is 
by  way  of  wishing  to  have  it  circulated.  She 
has,  in  fact,  consulted  me  about  having  it 
printed.  Now  I  want  you,  Mr.  Laurence,  to 
look  through  some  of  it,  and  tell  me  if  the 
writer  is  not  really  a  person  of  culture.  Per- 
haps you  would  not  mind  reading  out  a  little 
of  it' 

*  Am  I  to  read  it  a  through  ? '  asked 
Laurence,  as  he  took  the  seat  which  Mr. 
Rose  gave  up  to  him  at  the  table. 

*  No,  no,'  said  Lady  Ambrose.  '  Just 
pick  out  the  best  bits — a  page  here,  and  a 
page  there.' 

'  Well,'  said  Laurence,  '  I  will,  at  any  rate, 

start  with  the  beginning.     Now,  are  all  of  us 
Y  3 


324  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

ready  to  be  let  into  the  secrets  of  a  young 
lady's  soul  ? — 

'  "  One  often  feels  a  longing — ivho  has  not 
felt  it  f — hi  the  hurry  and  troiible  of  life  to 
pause  for  a  little  luhile  and  look  back  7ip07t 
the  past,  wJiich  zue  too  too  often  fo7get,  and  see 
what  it  is  zve  have  gi'ozvn  from.  We  long  to 
see  how  it  has  fared  with  ourselves — our  own 
selves — our  characters.^ 

'  I  think  you  may  skip  the  beginning-,' 
said  Lady  Ambrose,  '  it's  a  little  dull.  Turn 
over  a  page  or  two.' 

'  "  //oza  strangely  do  they  come  back  to  me^ 
those  distant  irrevocable  days  I "  Will  that 
do  ? '  asked  Laurence. 

'  Yes,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  '  I  think  so — 
go  on  there.' 

'  " those  distant  irrevocable  days,  when 

the  zuorld  was  all  nezv  to  me,  and  each  experi- 
e?ice  was  fresh  and  delightful,  and  I  knew 
7wthing  of  zvhat  self-reproach  cotdd  mean. 
Ah,  me  I  hozv  times  have  changed  sijice  then  ! 
I  sometimes  fancy  that  I  am  hardly  zvorthy 
nozv  to  look  back  2ipon  my  own  past.  I  zvas 
gifted  naturally  zuith  a  curiotis  warmth  and 
sincerity  of  nature,  that  must  have  been  very 
beautiful.  But  my  peculiar  gift,  my  ozvn  own 
gift,  was  a  pozver  of  sympathy  with  others,  by 
which  quite  7iaturally  I  tcsed  to  throw  myself 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  II.  325 

into  their  places^  understand  their  difficulties, 
and  excite  myself  ivith  their  interests.  IV heft 
I  was  yet  quite  a  child,  that,  I  know,  is  what 
men  felt  in  me — /  never  cared  for  boys — one 
man  especially.  It  zuas  then  that  life  6ega)t 
for  me,  and  what  it  all  meant  broke  on  me  like 
a  revelation.  I,  in  my  simplicity,  never 
dreamt  of  his  being  more  than  a  friend — /  ant 
not  sure  even  that  he  was  my  dearest  friend. 
I  certainly  never  tried  to  chartn  hint.  But 
I  did  charm  hint,  nevertheless,  quite  u7tcon- 
sciously.  And  he  loved  7ne  passionately,  de- 
votedly, child  as  I  was.  Ah,  God  /  when  will 
another  ever  feel  the  same  for  me  ?  And  I — 
*  O,  nty  lost,  my  rejected  friend  I  come  back  to 
me,^  sometimes  I  still  cry  in  7ny  solitude ; 
'■poor,  and  obscurely  connected  as  you  are, 
come  back  to  me  I '  I  shall  never  forget — poor 
little  vte  I — the  solemn  shock  of  the  7noment, 
how  my  heart  stood  still,  how  all  the  blood 
came  rushing  into  nty  cheek,  when  all  of  a 
sudden,  as  it  seemed  to  me,  and  without  any 
warning,  he  asked  me  to  be  his  wife.  Every- 
thing see^ned  to  grow  dizzy  before  m,e.  It 
seemed  to  me  as  if  the  day  of  jtidgme?it  had 
come.  [Alas  I  will  there  ever  be  a  day  of 
Judgment  at  all?  is  what  I  now  ask.)  I  don't 
know  what  I  said.  I  only  remember  distinctly 
my  throwing  7nyself  into  nty  mother  s  arms, 


326  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

and  crying  like  a  child — and  I  was  one — as  if 
my  very  heart  ivotild  break.  '/  a77i  only  a 
child!''  that  is  wJiat  I  said.  '  Oh,  mother,  I 
am  sncJi  a  child  I '  The  pathos  of  the  scene 
often  comes  back  to  7ne  even  now — a  shadowy 
timid  memory,  wondering  if  I  shall  give  it 
harbour.  I  renicmber,  too,  how  I  said  my 
prayers  that  night,  and  hozv  I  asked 
God 

*  I  think  you  needn't  read  that,'  said  Lady 
Ambrose,  '  go  on  a  page  or  two  further.' 

'  "  /  spent  much  of  my  time  sketching!' 
Shall  I  go  on  there  ?' said  Laurence.  '"/ 
had  akuays  a  curiously  appreciative  eye  for 
natural  beauty!'  Will  that  do  ?  Or  shall  I 
go  on  here — I  think  this  is  better — at  the  next 
paragraph  ? — "  OJi  the  great  waste  of  love  in 
this  our  zuorld!' ' 

'  Yes,  go  on  there,'  said  Mrs.  Sinclair  and 
several  others. 

'  ''  Oh  the  great  waste  of  love  in  this  our 
world  I  How  many  a  true  heart  would  have 
given  itself  to  me,  could  I  only  honestly  and 
unreservedly  have  opened  out  to  it  all  the 
depths  of  mine,  and  received  it!  And  why 
did  I  never  do  so  ?  It  may  be  that  I  have 
known  none  who  could  really  understand 
7ne — none  that  I  could  really  love.  Btit  does 
that  exctise  me,  not  for  not  loving  them,  but 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  11.  327 

for  making  as  thottgh  I  did  love  them,  and  so 
rimiing  their  lives  and  searing  7ny  own  ? 
sending  them  in  the  end  to  their  brandy-bottles, 
and  their  gaming-hells,  and  their  wild  Cre- 
mornes,  and  myself — to  the  mental  state  in 
which  I  am  now  I 

'  "  Have  I  then  lost  it  for  ever — lost  all  hope 
of  love  ?  a7id  7nnst  I  quietly  take  up  with  my 
unappreciated  loneliness  ?  If  it  is  so,  if,  indeed, 
it  is  so,  surely  I  have  brought  it  on  myself 
Was  there  not  one — not  7ny  earliest  lover — bitt 
another,  who  with  a  devotion  I  understood  far 
more  fully,  laid  himself  at  my  feet,  and  offered 
me  all  his  mans  devotion,  and  his  mans  sym- 
pathy /  Why,  zvhy  in  my  7nad?iess  did  I  send 
him  from  7ne,  penniless  as  he  was — bict  what 
of  that  ? — driving  him  to  death,  and  leavijtg 
myself  to  desolation  ?  How  does  the  image  of 
his  pale  still  face  upturned  towards  the  Indian 
star-light,  with  eyes  which  no  star-light  could 
ever  touch  any  more,  rise  before  me — his  hand 
on  his  breast,  and  clasping  with  its  last  gi^asp 
a  locket  with  my  picture  in  it  I  Yes,  I  see 
him  there,  though  I  did  not  see  him.  I  know 
how  he  must  have  looked,  with  his  heaj^t  bullet- 
pierced — noble,  beautiful  in  death.  Unworthy 
as  I  was  of  you,  my  trtie-hearted  07ie,  too  late, 
too  late,  did  I  lear7i  my  own  U7tworthiness.  I 
was  sitting  in   the  windozv  of  our  house  at 


328  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

Veiitnor,  when  the  letter  came  that  told  me. 
It  ivas  evening ;  and  I  had  beeji  looking  otct 
through  the  summer  twilight  at  the  sea  and  at 
the  sunset.  As  I  read  the  letter,  it  dropped 
from  my  hand.  I  gave  a  gasp.  I  repressed  a 
shrill  cry.  I  felt  a  choki^ig  sensatio?i  in  my 
throat ;  but  I  was  very  proud,  and  I  even  re- 
pressed a  sob.  I  only,  with  eyitire  calmness, 
turned  my  head  towards  the  sea,  and  sighed  a 
sigh  deep-drawn  as  if  my  soul  were  ift  it. 
My  cheek  was  pale,  my  eyes  were  wild  and 
wistful — full  of  a  solejnn  new  earriestness. 
What  the  exact  thoughts  were  that  were  busy 
in  me,  I  cannot  tell.  All  I  am  conscious  of 
was  this,  that  far,  far  off  were  the  great 
crimson  spaces  of  evening  sky  and  a  trail  of 
rippled  splendour  on  the  sea.  One  great  violet 
cloud  fringed  with  a  border  of  living  fire, 
that  seemed  to  be  eati7ig  into  it,  htmg  just  above 
the  place  where  the  sun  had  gone  down  ;  and 
over  this,  in  a  pale  liquid  solitiide  of  hushed 
colour,  was  the  evening  star,  trembling  like  a 
tear-drop.  I  was  always  sensitive  to  colour ; 
and  somehow  or  other  this  sunset  relieved  me 
— went  right  to  my  heart  with  a  quiet  sense  of 
healing.  That  evening  was,  I  think,  07ie  of 
the  great  points  i^i  my  life.  I  seemed  ever 
after  to  see  my  ow7i  character  more  clearly — 
how  deep  were  my  own  capacities  for  feeling, 


BOOK   IV.     CHAPTER  11.  329 

and  also  hoiv  strangely  N attire  could  e7iter  in 
and  comfort  me,  when  all  htcman  sympathy 
would  have  seemed  intrusive.  That  night, 
when  I  we7it  tipstairs,  I  hardly  knew  myself. 
There  was  a  wild  look  in  my  eyes — an  inex- 
pressible moicrnfulness  and  an  i^iexpressible 
longing.  Two  or  three  long  tendrils  of  hair 
had  got  loose,  and  hung  over  my  forehead  with 
a  kind  of  wild  languor.  '  What  is  there  that 
men  can  see  in  me  to  attract  them  f  '  /  had 
often  said  to  myself.  I  think  then  a  sojne- 
thing  of  what  it  was  began  to  dawn  upon  m,e. 
*  And  he — lie,  the  true,  the  gallant,  the  devoted,  he 
has  lost  all  this^  I  gasped,  tur?ii7ig  away  from, 
the  glass  ;  and,  throwing  myself  on  my  knees  by 
the  bed,  the  sob  I  had  so  long  suppressed  broke 

forth,  and  I  tried  to  pray "  h'm — and  so 

on,  and  so  on,  and  so  on ' 

'  You  needn't  read  all  those  bits  about 
the  prayers,'  said  Lady  Ambrose.  '  I  don't 
think  it  is  quite  reverent.' 

*  Well,'  said  Laurence,  '  here's  a  new 
stage  of  her  life.  Let  us  go  on  here.  "  Ayid 
now,  from  the  bleak  desolatio7i  of  my  present 
existence,  I  peer  wistfully  out  on  all  sides,  and 
see  if  any  will  bring  the  love  to  me  that  I  so 
much  crave  for!' ' 

'  Poor  thing ! '  said  Mrs.  Sinclair,  with  a 
little  sigh. 


330  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC 

*  I'm  afraid,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  '  I  must 
mention,  by  the  way,  that  the  lady  is  married, 
and  remarkably  well  married  too.' 

^  ^^  Here  in  the  old  house  with  its  qinet 
gablesl'  Laurence  went  on  reading,  ''  I  sit  in 
my  ozvn  room,  and  zvatch  the  sunset  dying 
away  over  the  yelloiving  antjcmn  woods,  itself 
the  colour  of  a  belated  a^ttninn  leaf.  I  zvatch 
it  alone — yes,  thank  heaven,  alone.  I  manage 
to  steal  for  an  honr  or  two  azvay  from  those 
people  of  whom  the  house  is  full.  Who  is 
there  amongst  them  that  can  tmdcrstand  me  ? 
zvhose  spirit  meets  mine  on  egtcal  terms  f  I 
laugh  zvith  them,  I  talk  zvith  them,  I  jest  with 
them,  and  they  think  they  know  me.  But  ah  I 
the  weariness,  the  far-ofifness  of  it  all 

'  It  is  entirely  her  own  fault,'  said  Lady 
Ambrose, '  that  she  has  these  people  here.  Her 
husband  is  devoted  to  the  country  and  the 
turnips  for  their  own  sake,  and  would  never 
see  a  soul  but  a  few  of  the  neighbouring 
squires  and  parsons,  if  she  did  not  make  him. 
In  London,  you  know,  she  is  nearly  always 
by  herself.  At  least,'  Lady  Ambrose  added, 
*  he's  very  rarely  with  her.' 

'  A  litde  further  on,'  said  Laurence,  '  it 
seems  that  all  the  visitors  have  gone  ;  and 
she  has  been  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  parson's 
wife.' 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  IL  331 

'  You  may  be  sure  she  was  quite  by  her- 
self if  she  did  that,'  said  Lady  Ambrose. 

'  Here,'  Laurence  continued,  '  is  a  descrip- 
tion of  the  visit,  "  What  szueet  eyes  the  little 
thing  had !  What  a  look  of  trnstfiilness  in 
her  face  I  A  good  and  pttre,  and  therefore  a 
happy  woman,  if  ever  there  zvas  one.  What 
a  trust  in  those  eyes  of  hers !  What  an 
innocence  !  What  a  szaeet  content  !  There  is 
no  purple  shadoiv  of  care  binder  her  eyes — 
{^people  say  I  darken  mine  artificially.  Alas! 
heaven  knoivs  there  is  little  need  for  me  to  do 
that  ! )  There  is  no  secret  Iron. die  discernible 
in  her  lips — no  languoj"  in  her  air  I  What 
does  she  knoiv  of  life,  with  its  trotibles,  its 
distractions,  its  sins  ?  Ah  !  zvere  I  but  like 
her — /,  zvoidd-worn  and  zvorld-weary,  sickened 
with  pomps,  and  vanities,  and  soiled  afiections, 
and  hollozv  homage — we7'e  I  but  worthy  tliat 
she  should  talk  to  me  !  'Don't  talk  to  me'  I 
felt  inclined  to  say.  '  You  zuojtldnt  if  you 
knew — if  y OIL  could  know!  OJi,  Jiozv  far  better 
are  yo2t  than  I !  You  little  dream  when  I 
sJiow  myself  demurely  in  my  seat  in  tlie  village 
churcJi,  bowing  at  the  Glorias,  or  hieeling 
zvith  my  face  Jiid  in  my  Jiands,  you  little 
imagine  wJiat  a  woman  you  see  tJiere. 
You  little  dream  wJiat  strange  thoughts  un- 
bidden mix  tJtemselves   up  for  me  with   tJie 


332  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

hyinn-^misic ;  zvhat  zuild  regrets,  what  bitter 
reveries,  lukat  strange  scenes  and  figures,  fill 
my  mind  as  I  kneel  before  the  Commtmion- 
table.  Why  could  I  not  have  been  content 
like  you  with  a  quiet  lot,  a  toiling  honest  hus- 
band like  you  ?  Is  thci^e  not  something  holy, 
even  in  his  dull  sermons,  if  you  only  look  on 
them  in  the  lovely  light  of  duty  f  Why  does 
my  heart  vibrate  zuith  the  troubled  zvailing 
music  of  many  sorrozus,  many  longings,  of 
which  yo2L  do  not  even  dream  the  existence? 
Oh  I  zvhat  a  far  higher,  far  nobler  woman  are 
you  than  I,  in  every  zvay  /  "  ' 

*  And  now,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  seeing 
that  Laurence  had  shut  the  book,  '  I  want  to 
know  if  all  this  is  a  specimen  of  culture,  and 
if  you  would  call  the  writer  a  cultivated  per- 
son ;  because  she  is  really  one  of  the  most 
delightful  people  I  know  to  talk  to  ;  and  if 
this  is  what  you  call  culture — though  I  think, 
in  her  case,  it's  a  little  bit  affected,  you  know 
—  but  then  she  never  lets  you  see  all  this 
when  you  talk  to  her — I  do  quite  from  the 
bottom  of  my  heart  give  up  about  culture 
being  priggish,  and  bookish,  and  all  that ; 
and  since,  as  you  say,  it  really  must  include 
religion,  I  don't  see  what  we  could  wish  for 
more,  to  make  life — humanly  speaking — per- 
fect.    Of  course  we  shall  do  good  sometimes 


BOOK   IV.     CHAPTER  11.  333 

— I  mean,  not  forget  the  poor — there's  some- 
thing so  wretchedly  heartless  in  that,  I  think. 

And  then,  too,  politics ' 

*  Yes,'  repeated  Allen,  '  politics ' 


'  Of  course,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  *  it  is 
necessary  that  some  of  us  should  look  after 
politics,  because  if  we  did  not  somebody  else 
would.  But  still — (are  you  a  Liberal,  Lord 
Allen  ?) — but  still,  within  a  limit,  I  think 
the  less  we  meddle  the  better.' 

*  Much,  Lady  Ambrose,'  said  Mr.  Rose, 
who  had  been  somewhat  put  out  by  this  di- 
gression, '  much  is,  no  doubt,  to  be  got  over 
in  your  friend's  style  ;  nor  do  I  think  the 
culture  displayed  in  her  memoirs,  even  apart 
from  that ' 

'  Oh,  but  you  mustn't  judge  her  only  by 
her  writings,'  said  Lady  Ambrose.  '  When 
you  meet  her,  she  is  not  a  bit  like  them.' 

'  Amateurs  in  writing  rarely  are,'  said 
Laurence.  '  Their  writings  are  simply  the 
foot-notes  of  their  lives,  where  they  tell  you 
what  they  heve  not  skill  enough  to  bring  into 
the  text.' 

'  She  draws  beautifully,'  Lady  Ambrose 
went  on,  '  and  is  really  the  brightest  of  crea- 
tures— so  witty,  and  with  such  a  sense  of  the 
ridiculous  !  And  really,  to  hear  her  tell  a 
bit  of  scandal — not   that    I    at   all   approve 


334  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

of  scandal  myself — I  always  think  it's  so 
uncharitable ' 

'  Ah,'  said  Donald  Gordon  gently,  '  I  have 
the  very  highest  opinion  of  scandal.  It  is 
founded  on  the  most  sacred  of  things — that 
is,  Truth,  and  it  is  built  up  by  the  most 
beautiful  of  things — that  is.  Imagination.' 

'  Well,  Mr.  Gordon,'  said  Lady  Ambrose, 
smiling,  '  we  won't  talk  about  that  now.  But 
as  for  what  you  say  about  style,  Mr.  Rose,  it 
is  rather  jerky,  and  so  forth,  I  admit.  How- 
ever, that's  the  way  with  us  women.  Indeed, 
I  often  think  that  if  women  had  invented 
language,  it  would  have  consisted  mainly  of 
interjections,  and  that  its  only  stop  would 
have  been  a  note  of  exclamation.' 

Mr.  Rose  was  much  annoyed  at  these 
interruptions. 

*  I  wanted  to  say,'  he  went  on,  as  soon  as 
Lady  Ambrose  had  ceased,  '  that  I  think 
your  friend's  memoirs  more  instructive  from 
their  very  shortcomings,  as  showing  how  the 
human  mind — even  if  not  exceptionally  gifted 
— has  come  to  be  an  organism  of  increased 
delicacy  and  capacity,  except  when  stunted  by 
the  necessity  of  work,  or  of  occupation  that  is 
other  than  voluntary,  and  chosen  for  any  ob- 
ject l^eyond  itself.  You  have  here,  you  see,  that 
same  modern  sense  of  the  blending  together 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  IT.  335 

of  the  outer  and  inner  worlds  ;  there  is  the 
same  deHcate  discrimination  between  the 
aesthetic  aspects  of  the  different  stages  of  Hfe, 
and  the  nice  gradation  of  moral  colours  : 
there  is  the  same  fine  self-consciousness,  and 
consequent  endeavour  to  give  tone  and 
quality  to  her  memories  as  they  pass  by  her, 
in  exquisite  and  complex  ways.' 

'  Yes,'  exclaimed  Leslie  suddenly,  who 
had  spoken  but  little  all  the  evening,  '  here,  I 
think,  is  the  crowning  work  of  culture.  It 
teaches  each  of  us  to  look  back  upon  his  own 
life,  with  all  its  wants,  its  relations,  and  its 
possibilities,  all  its  wasted  hours  and  its  affec- 
tions trifled  away  or  degraded — it  teaches  us 
to  look  back  upon  all  this  with  quite  a  new 
kind  of  discrimination.  The  beauty  of  youth, 
with  all  its  buoyancy  and  innocence,  wakes  in 
us  of  the  modern  world  a  more  wistful  and 
solemn  regret ;  we  are  more  keenly  alive  to 
the  pathos  of  failure  ;  to  the  sadness  of  the 
cold  shadows  that  will  often  darken  the  whole 
inward  landscape,  and  the  ravage  made  by 
the  storms  that  will  sometimes  break  over  it  ; 
and  to  the  gleams  of  sunshine  fitfully  re- 
appearing, often  only  touching  its  distant 
wolds.  And  the  charm  of  this  is,'  Leslie 
went  on,  with  a  short  laugh,  '  that  however 
disastrous   our   lives  may  have  been,  what- 


33^  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

ever  shipwreck  we  may  have  made  of 
ourselves  or  others,  let  us  only  look  back  on 
this  with  the  eyes  of  culture,  whilst  '' es 
luiederholt  die  Klage  des  Lebens  labyrintJiisch 
irrcn  Lauf^'  and  the  whole  retrospect  becomes 
a  delightful  picture,  the  more  impressive  and 
suggestive  from  its  landslips,  its  broken 
roads,  and  its  waste  places.  I  really  think 
one  is  repaid  for  having  made  oneself  quite 
lonely,  and  deserted,  and  friendless,  by  the 
pleasure  one  gets  from  contemplating  one's 
own  situation.' 

'  I  cannot  bear  that  man,'  whispered  Lady 
Ambrose  to  Miss  Merton.  '  Didn't  you 
notice  the  nasty  way  in  which  all  that  was 
said  ?  But — good  gracious,  Mr.  Laurence, 
what  is  that  bell  ringing  for  in  the  house  ? 
Is  that  for  us  to  leave  off  talking  ?  We  have 
not  half  done  yet.' 

Laurence  smiled,  and  looked  a  little  shy, 
and  murmured  that  he  did  not  think  it  was 
so  late.  '  I  don't  know  whether  you'll  mind,' 
he  said  at  last,  '  but  our  Rector  is  going  to 
give  us  a  little  evening  service.  He  proposed 
it  this  afternoon  in  the  garden,  and  I  could 
not  well  refuse/ 

'  Mind  it ! '  exclaimed  Lady  Ambrose.  '  I 
should  think  not.' 

*  Service  ! '    said    Dr.    Jenkinson  briskly  ; 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  II.  ^2>7 

'  yes,  come  and  let  us  go  to  that.  I  think,'  he 
said,  looking  round  him,  '  that  you  will  find 
the  religion  we  have  is  the  best  for  us  at 
present.  I  think  so.  And  Christianity,'  he 
added,  turning  to  Mr.  Stockton,  '  really  em- 
braces all  religions,  even  any  honest  denial 
of  itself.' 

There  was  now  a  general  movement 
towards  the  house. 

'  I'm  afraid,'  said  Mrs.  Sinclair  to  Leslie, 
'  that  you're  not  of  a  very  happy  disposition. 
You  don't  look  happy,  somehow.  And  yet 
I  think  you  might  be,  if  you  only  tried.  I 
suppose  yoiLre  not  out  of  spirits  like  Mr. 
Laurence,  because  you  don't  believe  in  the 
Trinity,  are  you  ?  Just  look  at  the  sea  now. 
Isn't  that  beautiful  ?  Don't  you  care  for  that  ? 
But  I,  you  know,'  she  added  with  a  sigh, 
'  disagree  with  Mr.  Luke.  /  want  the  notion 
of  a  personal  deity,  to  make  me  enjoy  nature. 
I  want  my  thought  to  pass  away  to  him.  But 
I  don't  mean  a  vague  deity  ;  but  some  one 
whom  I  have  myself  made  a  deity,  and  who, 
therefore,  I  can  be  quite  sure  exists — do  you 
see  ?  ' 

'  My  dear,'  said  Lady  Ambrose  again  to 

Miss    Merton,    '  I     really    cannot    bear    Mr. 

Leslie.    I  feel  quite  sure  he's  a  bad  man.    And 

the  way  he  sneers  and  laughs  at  things  does 

z 


338  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

ofo  SO  aofainst  me.  I  wouldn't  have  that  man 
inside  my  house,  do  )'oli  know,  for  anything. 
I  know  you  don't  think  so  ;  but  then  you 
Roman  CathoHcs  beheve  so  much,  you  can 
afford  to  be  Hberal.  Not  that  I  myself  am  at 
all  bieoted  ;  indeed,  the  one  thinq;  I  think  we 
want  is  toleration  and  charity.  And  do  you 
know,  my  dear,'  Lady  Ambrose  added  as 
they  were  entering  the  house,  '  I  have  a  set 
of  eight  cousins,  all  unmarried  ;  and  when  I 
look  at  those  girls'  faces,  I  do  confess,  my 
dear,  that  I  positively  wish  your  religion  was 
true  ;  for  then  they  could  all  go  into  convents. 
One  doesn't  like  those  half-and-half  Protes- 
tant things,  you  know.' 

Just  at  this  moment,  emerging  from  the 
house,  pale  and  disappointed,  appeared  the 
fiofure  of  Mr.  Saunders. 

'  It  is  thrown  away,'  he  exclaimed  ;  '  my 
disproof  of  God's  existence.  The  under- 
housemaid  did  it !  I  am  pleased  to  discover, 
however,  that  she  previously  read  through  a 
part ;  so  it  has  not  perished,  I  trust,  without 
emancipating  one  spirit.  What !  are  you  all 
going  indoors  ? ' 

'  Yes,'  said  Mr.  Storks,  laying  his  arm  on 
Mr.  Saunders's  shoulder ;  '  and  you  had 
better  come  too.  Young  man,'  he  said  in  a 
voice  of  commanding  kindness,  'you  should 


BOOK  IV.     CHAPTER  11.  339 

never  in  this  virulent  way  deny  God's  ex- 
istence.    What  rational  man  believes  in  it  ? ' 

'  I  was  looking  before  dinner,'  said  Mr. 
Rose,  who  with  Laurence  was  bringing  up  the 
rear,  '  at  the  books  in  your  uncle's  pavilion 
in  the  garden  ;  and  I  saw  there,  in  a  closed 
case,  a  copy  of  the  '  Cultes  secrets  des  Dames 
Romaines.' 

'Well  ?'  said  Laurence  a  little  stiffly.  *  It 
has  been  locked  up  for  years.' 

*  I  conceived  as  much,'  said  Mr.  Rose 
gently.  '  As  you  do  not  seem  to  set  much 
store  by  the  work,  I  will  give  you  thirty 
pounds  for  it.' 


z  2 


340  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 


BOOK    V. 
CHAPTER  I. 

g^NCE  more  the  theatre  was  brightly 
hghted  ;  and  once  more  the  con- 
gregation was  assembled  in  the  tier 
of  boxes.  There  was  not  so  much 
excitement  as  there  had  been  in  the  morning  ; 
indeed,  the  reserved  decorum  that  reigned 
might  have  been  said  to  partake  almost  of  the 
nature  of  apathy.  When,  however,  Dr.  Seydon 
entered,  none  could  deny  that  he  did  indeed 
look  a  reverend  man  ;  and  the  very  aspect  of 
the  place  seemed  to  grow  devotional  at  his 
presence.  Lady  Ambrose  perceived  with  a  full 
heart  that  he  was  duly  habited  in  a  surplice  ; 
and  her  bosom  warmed  with  a  sense  of  safety 
and  of  comfort  as  he  took  his  place  and 
solemnly  produced  his  prayer-book.  Nor  was 
Lady  Ambrose  alone  in  this  sudden  stir  of 
feeling.  There  was  another  of  the  wor- 
shippers who  was  moved  even  more  strongly, 
though  in  a  slightly  different  way.  Many 
starts  had  been  given  on  the  stage  in  that 


BOOK   V.     CHAPTER  I.  341 

theatre ;  but  none  of  these,  it  may  be  safely 
said,  ever  equalled  one  now  given  in  the 
boxes,  as  Dr.  Jenkinson,  who  had  been  kneel- 
ing with  his  face  hid  in  his  hands,  raised 
his  eyes,  and  saw  for  the  first  time  who  it 
was  confronting  him — no  obscure  rural 
clergyman,  as  he  had  anticipated,  but  that 
illiberal  apologist  of  superstition,  whose  offi- 
cious bigotry  had  robbed  the  Upper  House 
of  its  most  enlightened  spiritual  peer.  Dr. 
Jenkinson,  however,  with  the  heroism  of  a 
true  martyr,  suffered  bravely  for  his  faith  in 
the  comprehensiveness  of  Christianity.  His 
face  assumed,  in  another  moment,  an  expres- 
sion of  cherubic  suavity ;  in  his  gentlest  and 
devoutest  tones  he  was  soon  taking  his  part  in 
the  whole  service,  and  that  too  with  such  an  ex- 
quisite clearness  of  articulation,  that,  amongst 
the  confused  murmurs  of  the  rest,  the  entire 
evening  office  sounded  like  a  duet  between 
him  and  Dr.  Seydon.  It  is  true  that  there 
was  something  in  the  ring  of  this  one  audible 
voice  that  gave  the  latter  a  sense  of  some- 
thing being  wrong  somewhere  ;  but  luckily, 
being  a  little  shortsighted,  he  could  not  re- 
cognise the  owner  of  it ;  and  Dr.  Jenkinson, 
feeling  no  manner  of  call  to  endure  the  ser- 
mon, retired  furtively  as  soon  as  the  prayers 
were  over. 


342  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  Weren't  they  read  beautifully  ! '  said 
Lady  Ambrose  to  Lady  Grace  in  a  whisper. 
'  Oh,  how  glad  I  shall  be  to  hear  him  preach 
once  again  ! '  she  added,  as  Dr.  Seydon,  having 
risen  from  his  knees,  retired,  his  hands 
clasped  before  him,  through  the  side  door. 
Lady  Ambrose,  however,  was  entirely  alone 
in  this  gladness.  Most  of  the  others  dreaded 
the  sermon  that  was  imminent,  and  some 
even  meditated  following  Dr.  Jenkinson.  But 
events  were  too  quick  for  them.  Hardly,  it 
seemed,  had  Dr.  Seydon  left  the  stalls,  than 
the  curtain  drew  rapidly  up,  and  displayed 
again  the  gorge  in  the  Lidian  Caucasus,  only 
with  a  preacher  in  it  very  different  from  the 
one  who  had  stood  there  in  the  morning. 
The  whole  congregation  gave  a  sudden  gasp 
of  surprise.  It  was  not  Dr.  Seydon  that 
they  saw.     It  was  Mr.  Herbert. 

With  a  gracious  gravity  he  advanced  to- 
wards the  footlights  ;  and  made  a  slight  bow  to 
the  house — a  bow  of  deprecation  and  apology. 

'  A  little  while  ago,  in  the  garden,'  he  said, 
'  I  confessed  to  our  kind  host,  Mr.  Laurence, 
that  there  were  a  few  things  that  I  should  like 
quietly  to  say  to  you  ;  and  Mr.  Laurence  has 
become  sponsor  for  you  all,  and  has  promised, 
in  your  names,  that  you  would  suffer  me  to 
say    them    here.      It  is   true,'    Mr.    Herbert 


BOOK   V.     CHAPTER  L  343 

went  on,  with  a  smile  and  a  wave  of  his  hand, 
'  that  when  I  look  round  me  at  this  glittering 
semicircle,  I  begin  to  feel  not  a  little  shy  of 
you,  and  to  repent  of  my  own  temerity. 
You,  however,  have  given  me  to-day  so  much 
good  food  for  reflection,  that  I  feel  bound,  in 
the  commonest  honesty,  to  make  what  poor 
return  I  can.  So  remember,  that  if  I  weary 
you,  you  have  really  brought  it  upon  your- 
selves. 

'  Well — to  begin,  then.  You  think  me — 
you  need  not  deny  it,  for  I  know  you  think 
me — a  somewhat  crotchety  and  melancholy 
individual,  averse  to  modern  knowledge  and 
to  modern  progress,  and  seeing,  as  a  rule, 
everything  very  yellow  indeed,  with  his 
jaundiced  eyes.  But  I  think  myself  that  I  am 
not  by  any  means  so  obstinate  and  so  wrong- 
headed  as  I  am  quite  aware  that  I  appear  to 
you ;  nay,  my  own  opinion  is  that  I  err, 
rather,  in  not  being  quite  obstinate  enough. 
It  is  true  that  I  have  persistently  pointed  out 
that  England  is  at  present  given  over  wholly 
to  ignoble  pursuits,  and  is  ruining  herself  with 
deadly  industries.  But  I  have  never  said 
hitherto,  so  far  as  I  know,  that  we  might  not 
rally,  and  that  a  brighter  future  might  not  be 
in  store  for  us.  Nay,  I  hailed  a  piece  of  news 
to-day  with  the  most  unfeigned  delight,  which 


344  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

seemed  an  omen  to  me  that  such  a  brighter 
future  actually  was  in  store  for  us.  In  a  paper 
that  reached  me  this  afternoon  there  was  a 
letter  on  the  prospects  of  the  English  iron 
trade ;  and  I  read  in  that  letter  that  nineteen 
foundries  in  Middlesborough  have  been  closed 
within  the  last  three  months,  and  the  Moloch 
fires  in  their  blast-furnaces  extinguished  ;  that 
ten  more  foundries  in  the  same  place  are 
scarcely  able  to  continue  work,  and  must 
very  shortly  be  closed  likewise  ;  and  that  the 
dense  smoke-cloud  that  so  long  has  darkened 
that  whole  country  is  beginning  to  clear  away, 
and  will  open  ere  long  upon  astonished 
human  eyes,  that  have  never  yet  beheld  it, 
the  liquid  melted  blue  of  the  deep  wells  of 
the  sky.  It  is  quite  true  that  this  indication 
of  a  reviving  prosperity  for  our  country 
suggests  more  than  it  proves.  But  at  any  rate 
it  put  me  this  afternoon,  when  I  joined  your 
party,  into  quite  a  right  and  hopeful  mood 
for  appreciating  your  conceptions  of  a  better 
order  of  things.  It  is  in  fact  simply  to  ex- 
plain my  appreciation  that  I  am,  in  this  most 
unconscionable  way,  now  detaining  you. 

'  Let  me  say  in  the  first  place,  then,  how 
profoundly  right  I  consider  the  manner  in 
which  you  set  to  work.  For  it  is  one  of  the 
most  vital  of  all  truths,  that  in  a  perfect  state 


BOOK   V.     CHAPTER  I.  345 

all  the  parts  will  be  perfect ;  and  that  if  the 
highest  classes  be  as  good  as  they  can  be,  so 
also  will  be  all  the  other  classes.  And  I 
want  to  tell  you,  in  the  next  place,  how 
entirely  fair  and  lovely  did  all  the  elements 
seem  to  be,  out  of  which  you  composed  for 
your  higher  classes  their  ideal  existence. 
For  you  gave  them  every  outward  grace  that 
could  adorn  life,  and  every  inward  taste  and 
emotion  that  could  enrich  it,  and  every 
species  of  intellectual  activity  that  could 
stimulate  it.  Your  society  was  indeed  to  be 
truly  the  crhne  de  la  crhne  :  it  was  to  be 
made  beautiful,  and  profound,  and  brilliant, 
by  lovers,  and  theologians,  and  wits,  and  men 
of  science,  and  poets,  and  philosophers,  and 
humourists — all  men  and  women  of  the 
world,  and  fit  to  live  in  society,  as  well  as  to 
educate  it.  This  would  indeed  be,  as  was 
said  at  dinner,  Rome  and  Athens  and 
Florence,  at  their  best,  and  let  me  add  Paris 
also,  united  and  reanimated,  and  enriched  by 
the  possession  of  yet  wider  knowledge,  and 
the  possibilities  of  freer  speculation.  That 
truly  is  a  dazzling  picture.  But  even  that  is 
not  all.  There  was  your  city  itself  too,  of 
which  a  lovely  glimpse  was  given  us,  with  its 
groves,  its  gardens,  its  palaces,  and  its  ex- 
quisite reproductions  of  the  world's  noblest 


346  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

architectures ;  and  all  this  under  our  softest 
English  skies,  and  by  our  bluest  English 
seas.  Ah,'  exclaimed  Mr.  Herbert,  smiling, 
and  clasping-  his  hands  gently,  '  how  I  should 
like  to  live  in  a  city  like  that !  I  can  literally 
see  it  now  with  my  mind's  eye,  whilst  I  am 
talking.  I  see  its  private  houses  with  their 
wonders  of  wrouoht  marble  ;  I  see  its 
theatres,  its  museums,  its  chapels  and 
churches  of  all  denominations,  its  scientific 
lecture  rooms,  and  its  convents.  For  what 
strikes  me  more  forcibly  than  anything  is 
that  all  forms  of  faith  and  philosophy  seem 
to  find  here  an  impartial  home,  and  to  unite  in 
animating  one  harmonious  social  life.  In  fact, 
so  vividly  do  I  see  this  scene  which  your 
words  have  called  up  before  me,  that  I  want 
very  much,  if  you  will  let  me,  to  add  one 
small  feature  to  it,  myself.  It  is  a  very 
humble  detail,  this  of  mine.  In  the  eyes  of 
the  men  of  science,  who  lead  modern 
thought,  it  is  simply  a  sanitary  matter.  It 
relates  to  the  way  in  which  you  shall 
dispose  of  your  dead.  Now  in  this,  at  least, 
you  will  be  surprised  to  hear  I  quite  keep 
pace  with  the  times,  being  a  sincere  advocate 
for  cremation  ;  and  what  I  should  want  to  do 
in  your  city,  would  be  to  supply  it  with  an 
establishment,  hidden  underground,  where  the 


BOOK   V.     CHAPTER  L  347 

bodies  of  the  dead  should  be  turned  into  gas, 
in  properly  devised  retorts  ;  the  gas  from 
each  body  being  received  in  a  small  separate 
gasometer.  Above  these  gasworks,  and 
amongst  your  fair  towers  and  spires,  and 
your  superb  institutions,  and  art-galleries,  I 
would  build  a  circular  domed  temple  of 
umbred  marble,  blind  and  blank  upon  the 
face  of  it,  without  carved  work,  and  without 
window  ;  only  there  should  be  written  above 
the  portal,  not  as  in  Dante's  vision, 

Per  me  si  va  nell'  etemo  dolore, 
Per  me  si  va  tra  la  perduta  gente — 

but  one  verse  out  of  our  English  translation 
of  the  Bible,  for  women  and  little  children  to 
read  ;  and  another  verse  out  of  a  Latin  poet, 
which  is,  I  believe,  an  equivalent  for  the 
original  of  that  translation,  for  men  and 
scholars  to  read.  The  first  should  be, 
"  Though  after  my  skin  worms  destroy  this 
body,  yet  in  my  flesh  shall  I  see  God."  And 
the  other  : 

Quaeris  quo  jaceas  post  obitum  loco  ? 
Quo  non  nata  jacent. 

And  within,  around  the  dark  walls,  should 
be  a  number  of  separate  shrines,  like — 
to  use  the  simile  that  Dante  would  have 
chosen — the    stalls    in   a  great   stable  ;    and 


348  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

to  each  shrine  there  should  be  a  separate 
gas-jet.  And  when  the  Hfe  of  any  was  over, 
after  the  fire  had  done  its  work  upon  the 
dead  body,  that  man  or  woman  who  felt 
most  bitterly  the  loss  of  the  one  that  had 
been,  should  repair  to  this  temple,  to  an  ap- 
pointed shrine,  and  there,  in  silence  kneeling 
before  it,  should  light  the  gas-jet ;  and  thus 
evoking  for  the  last  time  that  which  was  once 
so  loved  and  loving,  pass,  with  what  thoughts 
might  be,  a  brief  vigil  before  it,  till  its  flicker 
grew  slowly  faint  upon  the  watcher's  face, 
and  at  length  it  went  out  and  ended  utterly 
and  for  ever.  And  above,  over  these 
sanctuaries  of  bereavement  and  final  leave- 
taking,  there  should  hang  from  the  domed 
roof  one  rude  iron  lamp,  always  burning — 
casting  a  pale  flare  upwards  upon  the  dark- 
ness. This  would  be  the  common  lamp  of 
the  poor,  for  whose  sake,  dying,  no  one  felt 
bereavement,  or  whom  no  one  at  any  rate 
could  find  time  to  say  good-bye  to ;  but 
who  thus  united  together,  apart  by  them- 
selves, would  do  all  that  would  be  at  all 
seemly  in  them — would  remind  you  mutely 
and  unobtrusively  by  their  joint  light,  that 
one  thing  at  least  they  shared  with  you, 
namely  death.  It  is  not  of  the  poor,  how- 
ever, that    I  am  mainly  thinking  now.      It  is 


BOOK   V.     CHAPTER  I. 


349 


of  your  higher  classes,  who  have  leisure 
to  feel  sorrow  and  all  its  holy  influences. 
And  these,  I  say,  would  find  in  this  simple 
funeral  service  one  that  would  meet  all  their 
diverse  needs,  and  be  in  tune  with  all  their 
diverse  feelings.  It  would  suit  all.  For  to 
some  it  would  symbolise  an  absolute  disbelief 
in  any  life  beyond  ;  and  to  all  the  rest  it 
would  symbolise  a  bewildered  doubt  about 
any  life  beyond.  For  in  one  or  other  of 
these  states  of  mind  everyone  would  be. 

'  Do  you  deny  it  ?  '  exclaimed  Mr. 
Herbert,  raising  his  voice  suddenly,  and 
looking  round  the  theatre  with  a  passionate 
anger,  at  which  the  whole  audience  were 
literally  electrified.  '  Do  you  deny  it  } '  he 
exclaimed.  '  I  tell  you  that  it  is  so.  I  tell 
you  too  that  that  is  your  own  case,  and  that 
in  your  Utopia  you  have  aggravated  the 
evil,  and  have  not  remedied  it.  You  are  all 
deniers  or  doubters,  I  tell  you,  every  one  of 
you.  The  deniers,  I  know,  will  not  contradict 
me  ;  so  at  present  I  need  not  speak  to  them. 
It  is  to  you — the  majority,  you  who  will  qow- 
tradict  me  ;  you  who  are  so  busy  with  your 
various  affirmations,  with  your  prayers,  your 
churches,  your  philosophies,  your  revivals  of 
old  Christianities,  or  your  new  improvements 
on    them  ;    with    your    love    of  justice,    and 


350  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

humanity,  and  toleration  ;  it  is  to  you  that  I 
speak.  It  is  to  you  that  I  say  that,  however 
enhghtened  and  however  sure  you  may  be 
about  all  other  matters,  you  are  darkened  and 
uncertain  as  to  this — whether  there  really  is 
any  God  at  all  who  can  hear  all  the  prayers 
you  utter  to  Him,  or  whether  there  really  is 
any  other  life  at  all,  where  the  aspirations 
you  are  so  proud  of  will  be  realised,  and 
where  the  wrongs  you  are  so  pitiful  over  will 
be  righted.  There  is  not  one  amongst  you 
who,  watching  a  dead  friend,  flickering  for  the 
last  time  before  you  in  the  form  of  a  gas- 
flame,  and  seeing  how  a  little  while  and  this 
flame  was  with  you,  and  again  a  little  while 
and  it  was  not  with  you,  would  be  at  all  sure 
whether  this  was  really  because,  as  your 
hearts  would  suggest  to  you,  it  went  to  the 
Father,  or  because,  as  your  men  of  science 
would  assert  to  you,  it  went  simply — out. 

'  Listen  to  me  for  a  moment,  and  I  can 
prove  that  this  is  so,  to  you.  You  are  rich, 
and  you  have  leisure  to  think  of  things  in 
what  light  you  will,  and  your  life  is  to  a  great 
extent  made  easy  for  you  by  the  labour  of 
others.  I  do  not  complain  of  that.  There 
can  be  no  civilisation  without  order,  and 
there  can  be  no  order  without  subordination. 
Outward    goods    must   be   apportioned    un- 


BOOK   V.     CHAPTER  1.  351 

equally,  or  there  would  be  no  outward  goods 
to  apportion.  But  you  who  have  the  larger 
share  of  these  are  bound  to  do  something  for 
those  who  have  the  less.  I  say  you  are 
botmd  to  do  so  ;  or  else  sooner  or  later  that 
larger  share  will  be  taken  away  from  you. 
Well,  and  what  is  it  you  propose  to  do  '^.  I 
know  your  answer —  I  have  heard  it  a  thou- 
sand times.  You  will  educate  them — you 
will  teach  them.  And  truly,  if  you  know  how 
to  do  that  properly,  you  will  have  done  all 
you  need  do.  But,'  exclaimed  Mr.  Herbert, 
his  voice  again  rising,  and  quivering  with  ex- 
citement, '  that  is  just  what  you  do  not  know. 
I  am  not  casting  my  words  at  random.  Out 
of  your  own  mouths  will  I  judge  you.  There 
never  was  a  time  when  you  talked  so  much 
as  now  about  teaching  the  people,  and  yet  do 
not  you  yourselves  confess  that  you  cannot 
agree  together  as  to  what  to  teach  them  ? 
You  can  agree  about  teaching  them — I  know 
this  too  well — countless  things  that  you  think 
will  throw  light  upon  life  ;  but  life  itself  you 
leave  a  blank  darkness  upon  which  no  light 
can  be  thrown.  You  say  nothing  of  what  is 
good  in  it,  and  of  what  is  evil.  Does  success 
in  it  lie  in  the  enjoyment  of  bodily  pleasures, 
or  in  the  doing  of  spiritual  duty  ?  Is  there 
anything  in  it  that  is  right  for  its  own   sake, 


352  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

or  are  all  things  right  only  because  of  their 
consequences  ?  And  seeing  that,  if  we 
struggle  for  virtue,  our  struggles  can  never  be 
quite  successful  here,  is  there  any  other  place 
where  they  may  have,  I  do  not  say  their 
reward,  but  their  consummation  ?  To  these 
questions  only  two  answers  can  be  given,  and 
one  must  be  entirely  true,  and  the  other  en- 
tirely false.  But  you — you  dare  not  give 
either;  you  are  too  enlightened.  It  is  true 
iha.tyo?(  can  afford  to  be  liberal  about  these 
matters  ;  you  can  afford  to  consider  truth  and 
falsehood  equally  tolerable.  But  for  the  poor 
man  surely  it  is  not  so.  It  must  make  some 
difference  to  him  what  you  teach  him,  whether 
your  teaching  is  to  open  his  eyes  to  his  God 
and  to  his  duty,  and  so  place  his  noblest 
happiness  in  his  own  hands,  or  whether  it  is  to 
open  his  eyes  to  those  verified  Utilitarian  prin- 
ciples from  which  he  will  learn  that  his  own 
life  and  labour  are  only  not  utterly  contempti- 
ble, because  they  conduce  to  a  material  well- 
being  in  which  he  himself  can  have  no  share. 
If,  with  entire  belief  yourselves,  you  are  pre- 
pared to  give  him  the  former  teaching,  why 
then  it  is  well  and  good  both  for  him  and  you. 
But  if  not,  beware  of  teaching  him  at  all. 
You  will  but  be  removing  a  cataract  from  his 
mind's  eye    that    he    may    stare    aghast   and 


BOOK   V.     CHAPTER  I.  353 

piteous  at  his  own  poverty  and  nakedness,  or 
that  he  may  gaze  with  a  wild  beast's  hunger 
at  your  own  truly  noble  prosperity  which  he 
can  never  taste,  save  in  the  wild  beast's  way. 

'  But  enough  of  the  poor  ;  enough  of  this 
division  of  happiness.  Let  me  ask  you  to 
consider  now  what  sort  of  happiness  there  is 
to  divide — I  say  divide,  meaning  that  you 
will  get  the  whole  of  it.  And  as  I  have  said 
before,  this  happiness  is  very  fair  in  seeming. 
Knowledge,  and  culture,  and  freedom,  and 
toleration — you  have  told  us  what  fine  things 
all  these  can  do  for  you,  And  I  admit  it 
myself  too  ;  I  feel  it  myself  too.  Lovely, 
indeed,  to  look  upon  are  the  faiths,  the  philo- 
sophies, the  enthusiasms  of  the  world — the 
ancient  products  of  the  ages — as  the  sun- 
shine of  the  modern  intellect  falls  on  them. 
See,  they  look  clearer,  and  brighter,  and  more 
transparent — see,  they  form  themselves  into 
more  exquisite  and  lucid  shapes,  more  aerial 
structures.  But  why  ?  Do  not  deceive  your- 
selves ;  it  is  for  a  terrible  reason.  It  is  be- 
cause, like  a  fabric  of  snow,  they  are  one  and 
all  dissolving. 

'  Listen,  and  I  will  show  you  that  this  is  so. 
Aristotle  says  that  what  is  truly  a  man's  Self 
is  the  thinking  part  of  him.  This  sooner  or 
later  all  the  other  parts  obey — sooner  or  later, 

A  A 


354  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

willingly  or  unwillingly ;  and  if  this  Self  be 
base,  the  whole  man  will  be  base  ;  if  the  Self 
be  noble,  the  whole  man  will  be  noble.  And 
as  it  is  with  the  individual  man,  so  it  is 
with  the  ages  and  the  generations.  They  obey 
their  several  Selves,  whatever  these  Selves 
may  be.  The  world  once  had  a  Self  whose 
chief  spokesman  was  a  Jewish  peasant  called 
Jesus  ;  and  sooner  or  later  the  world  followed 
him.  Later  on,  it  had  a  Self  whose  chief 
spokesmen  were  Dominies  or  Luthers  or 
Loyolas  ;  and  in  like  manner  the  world 
followed  them.  Later  still,  it  had  got  another 
Self,  and  the  chief  spokesmen  of  this  were 
Voltaires  and  Rousseaus.  And  in  each  case 
the  world  was  convinced  at  heart,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  that  the  vital  truths  of  life 
were  to  be  sought  for  only  where  these  Selves 
sought  for  them.  With  Jesus  and  with 
Luther  it  sought  them  in  duty  and  in  a 
turning  to  the  true  God  ;  with  Voltaire  and 
Rousseau,  in  justice,  and  in  a  turning  from  the 
false  God.  And  now,  where  do  you  seek  them  1 
Where  does  the  Self  of  your  age  seek  them — 
your  Self,  that  thinking  part  of  you  before 
which  you  all  either  quail  or  worship  ?  Does  it 
seek  them  either  in  justice,  or  loving-kindness, 
or  in  the  vision  of  the  most  high  God  !  No — 
but  in  the  rotting  bodies  of  dead  men,  or  in 


BOOK   V.     CHAPTER  I.  355 

the  writhing  bodies  of  Hve  cats.  And  in 
your  perplexity,  and  your  amazed  despair, 
ever  and  again  you  cry  to  it.  What  shall 
we  do  to  be  saved  ?  Show  us  the  Father  ! 
Show  us  the  high  and  holy  One  that  inhabiteth 
Eternity  !  And  what  does  your  Self  answer 
you  ?  It  answers  you  with  a  laugh,  "  There 
is  no  high  and  holy  One  at  all.  How  say  ye 
then  to  me,  Show  us  the  Father  ?  For  the 
Earth  saith.  He  is  not  with  me  ;  and  the  depth 
saith,  He  is  not  with  me  ;  and  our  filthy  phials 
of  decaying  animal  matter  say.  He  is  not  with 
us.  Argal,  ye  poor  foolish  seekers,  He  is  no- 
where." You  may  try  to  escape  from  youi 
own  Self,  but  you  cannot ;  you  may  try  to 
forget  its  answer,  but  you  cannot.  Loudly 
you  may  affirm  with  your  lips  ;  but  the  im- 
portunate denial  is  ever  at  your  heart.  Patrice 
q2iis  exsul  se  quoqiie  ftigit  f 

'  What  do  you  do  then  in  this  perplexity 
— this  halting  between  two  opinions  ?  Why, 
you  do  this.  You  try  to  persuade  yourselves 
that  neither  opinion  is  of  much  moment — that 
the  question  cannot  be  decided  absolutely — 
that  it  should  not  be  decided  absolutely — in 
fact,  that  it  is  one  of  your  chief  glories  that 
you  leave  it  undecided.  But  I  tell  you,  in 
that  case,  that  though  you  say  you  are  rich, 
and  increased  with  goods,  and  have  need  of 

A  A  2 


3S6  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

nothing ;  you  are,  in  reality,  wretched,  and 
miserable,  and  poor,  and  blind,  and  naked.  I 
am  not  casting  my  words  at  random.  Again 
out  of  your  own  mouths  will  I  judge  you. 
All  your  culture,  you  say,  is  based  ultimately 
upon  this — a  discrimination  between  right 
and  wrong.  True,  profoundly  true.  But  will 
you  be  able  to  say  what  is  right  and  what  is 
wrong  any  longer,  if  you  don't  know  for 
who7n  anything  is  right  and  for  whom  any- 
thinof  is  wronor — whether  it  is  for  men  with 
immortal  souls,  or  only  with  mortal  bodies — 
who  are  only  a  little  lower  than  the  angels,  or 
only  a  little  better  than  the  pigs  ?  Whilst 
you  can  still  contrive  to  doubt  upon  this  mat- 
ter, whilst  the  fabric  of  the  old  faith  is  still 
dissolving  only,  life  still  for  you,  the  enlight- 
ened few,  may  preserve  what  happiness  it  has 
now.  But  when  the  old  fabric  is  all  dissolved, 
what  then  ?  When  all  divinity  shall  have 
gone  from  love  and  heroism,  and  only  utility 
and  pleasure  shall  be  left,  what  then  ?  Then 
you  will  have  to  content  yourselves  with  com- 
plete denial ;  or  build  up  again  the  faith  that 
you  have  just  pulled  down — you  will  have 
to  be  born  again,  and  to  seek  for  a  new  Self. 
'  But  suppose  we  accept  denial,  you  will 
say,  what  then  ?  Many  deniers  have  lived 
noble  lives,  though  they  have  looked  neither 


BOOK   V.     CHAPTER  I.  357 

for  a  God  nor  for  a  heaven.   Think  of  Greece, 
you  will  say  to  me,  and  that  will  answer  you. 
No— but  that  is  not  so,  and  that  will  not  an- 
swer me.     The  Greeks  never,  in  your  sense, 
denied    God ;    they  never,    m    your    sense, 
denied     eternal    life— never,    because    they 
never  knew  them.     Th^y  feli  God  only  ;  they 
felt  him  unconsciously  ;  and    in    denying  the 
God   they  knew,   they  were  really  affirming 
the   God    they  felt.     But  you— do   not  you 
deceive  yourselves.     Do  not  think  you   can 
ever  again  be  as  the  Greeks.     The  world's 
progress   has  a   twofold    motion.        History 
moves    onwards    round    some    undiscovered 
centre,   as  well  as  round  what  you  consider 
its  discovered  axis  ;  and  though  it  seems  to 
repeat  itself,  it  never  can  repeat  itself.     The 
Atheism    of  the    modern   world    is    not   the 
Atheism  of  the  ancient :  the  long  black  night 
of  the  winter  is  not  the  swift  clear  night  of  the 
vanished  summer.     The  Greek  philosopher 
could  not  darken  his  life,  for  he  knew  not  from 
what  mysterious  source  the  light  fell  upon  it. 
The  modern  philosopher  does  know,  and  he 
knows  that  it  is  called  God,  and  thus  know- 
ing  the    source   of    light    he   can   at    once 
quench  it. 

'  What  will  be  left  you  then  if  this  light  be 
quenched  }  Will  art,  will  painting,  will  poetry 


3S8  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

be  any  comfort  to  you  ?  You  have  said  that 
these  were  magic  mirrors  which  reflected  back 
your  Hfe  for  you.  Well — will  they  be  any 
better  than  the  glass  mirrors  in  your 
drawing-rooms,  if  they  have  nothing  but 
the  same  listless  orgy  to  reflect  ?  For 
that  is  all  that  will  be  at  last  in  store  for  you  ; 
nay,  that  is  the  best  thing  that  possibly  can  be 
in  store  for  you  ;  the  only  alternative  being  not 
a  listless  orgy  for  the  few,  but  an  undreamed- 
of anarchy  for  all.  I  do  not  fear  that,  how- 
ever. Some  will  be  always  strong,  and  some 
will  be  always  weak ;  and  though,  if  there 
is  no  God,  no  divine  and  fatherly  source  of 
order,  there  will  be,  trust  me,  no  aristocracies, 
there  will  still  be  tyrannies.  There  will  still 
be  rich  and  poor  ;  and  that  will  then  mean 
happy  and  miserable  ;  and  the  poor  will  be — 
as  I  sometimes  think  they  are  already — but 
a  mass  of  groaning  machinery,  without  even 
the  semblance  of  rationality  ;  and  the  rich, 
with  only  the  semblance  of  it,  but  a  set  of 
gaudy,  dancing  marionettes,  which  it  is  the 
machinery's  one  work  to  keep  in  motion. 

'  What,  then,  shall  you  do  to  be  saved  ? 
Rend  your  hearts,  I  say,  and  do  not  mend 
your  garments.  Seek  God  earnestly,  and 
peradventure  you  still  may  find  Him — and  I 
— even  I  may  find  Him  also.     For  I — who 


BOOK   V.     CHAPTER  I.  359 

am  I  that  speak  to  you  ?  Am  I  a  believer  ? 
No,  I  am  a  doubter  too.  Once  I  could 
pray  every  morning',  and  go  forth  to  my  day's 
labour  stayed  and  comforted.  But  now  I  can 
pray  no  longer.  You  have  taken  my  God  away 
from  me,  and  I  know  not  where  you  have 
laid  Him.  My  only  consolation  in  my  misery 
is  that  at  least  I  am  inconsolable  for  His  loss. 
Yes,'  cried  Mr.  Herbert,  his  voice  rising  into 
a  kind  of  threatening  wail,  '  though  you  have 
made  me  miserable,  I  am  not  yet  content 
with  my  misery.  And  though  I  too  have 
said  in  my  heart  that  there  is  no  God,  and 
that  there  is  no  more  profit  in  wisdom  than 
in  folly,  yet  there  is  one  folly  that  I  will  not 
give  tongue  to.  I  will  not  say  Peace,  peace, 
when  there  is  no  peace.  I  will  not  say  we 
are  still  Christians,  when  we  can  sip  our 
wine  smilingly  after  dinner,  and  talk  about 
some  day  defining  the  Father ;  and  I  will 
only  pray  that  if  such  a  Father  be.  He  may 
have  mercy  alike  upon  those  that  hate  Him, 
because  they  ^c/^7/  not  see  Him  ;  and  on  those 
who  love  and  long  for  Him,  although  they  no 
longer  can  see  Him.' 

Mr.  Herbert's  voice  ceased.  The  cur- 
tain fell.  The  whirlwind  was  over  ;  the  fire 
was  over  ;  and  after  the  fire,  from  one  of  the 
side  boxes  came  a  still  small  voice. 


360  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  Very  poor  taste — very  poor  taste.' 
It  was    perceived    that    Dr.    Jenkinson, 
having  discovered  almost    immediately  who 
was  really  to  be  the  preacher,  had  stolen  back 
silently  into  the  theatre. 


BOOK   V.     CHAPTER  II.  361 


CHAPTER   II. 

[HE  following  morning  Miss  Merton 
had  risen  early,  and  was  saunter- 
ing slowly  before  breakfast  up  and 
down  the  broad  terrace  in  front  of 
the  house.  She  inhaled  the  fresh  delightful  air; 
she  looked  out  over  the  breezy  sea ;  she  scanned 
the  splendid  villa,  now  shining  in  the  sunlight, 
with  its  marble  porticoes,  and  its  long  rows 
of  windows  ;  and  she  thought  over  yesterday 
with  all  its  conversations  and  incidents,  In 
especial,  she  thought  of  Laurence.  She 
thought  of  him  as  he  was  now,  and  as  he  had 
been  in  former  times,  when  they  had  known 
each  other  so  well ;  and  as  she  thought  of 
him,  she  sighed. 

'  And  he  might  do  so  m«ch,'  she  said  to 
herself,  '  and  yet  he  is  so  weak  and  so  irreso- 
lute ;  wasting  his  time  in  Paris  and  in  London, 
reading  poetry  and  buying  pictures,  and  talk- 
ing philosophy  he  doesn't  believe  in  with  his 
dilettante  friends.  And  this  place — this 
lovely  place — how  often  does  he  come  here  } 


362  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

What  does  he  do  for  his  tenants  and  depend- 
ants— for  all  who  ought  to  look  for  help  to 
him  ?  I  have  no  patience  with  a  man  who 
keeps  moaning  about  religion  as  he  does,  and 
yet  won't  act  up  to  the  light  which  he  must 
have.' 

Whilst  she  was  thus  meditating,  the 
subject  of  her  meditations  appeared  upon  the 
terrace. 

'  You  are  out  early,'  he  said.  '  I  have 
been  just  seeing  Herbert  oft'.  He  has  had  to 
go  before  everybody  else,  for  he  is  en  route 
for  Italy.' 

'  You  look  very  tired,'  said  Miss  Merton 
sympathetically. 

'  Oh,  it  is  nothing,'  said  Laurence,  turning 
the  subject.  '  Did  you  notice  Leslie  last 
evening  in  the  garden,  and  how  odd  his 
manner  was  ?  Do  you  remember,  too,  the 
pretty  song  he  sang  the  night  before,  and 
how  surprised  we  all  were  at  it  ?  Well,  I 
had  a  letter  yesterday,  from  a  friend  both 
of  his  and  mine,  which  explains  it.  The 
heroine  of  the  song  was  not  an  ideal  young 
lady,  though  whether  one  can  call  her  real 
any  longer  is  more  than  I  can  say.  She  is 
dead.  I  don't  know  all  the  story  ;  but  my 
friend  just  gave  me  the  outline,  and  enclosed 
a  note  for  Leslie,  to  tell  the  news  to   him 


BOOK   V.     CHAPTER  11.  363 

himself.  He  never  fancies  he  feels  anything; 
but  what  he  won't  admit  to  himself,  his 
manner,  I  am  sure  admitted  to  me,  and  I 
dare  say  to  you  too.' 

'Yes,'  said  Miss  Merton  thoughtfully,  '  I 
felt  sure  it  must  be  something  of  that  kind. 
But  you,'  she  said,  turning  to  Laurence, 
*  how  utterly  tired  and  worn-out  you  look.' 

'  To  say  the  truth,'  Laurence  answered, 
'  I  slept  very  little  last  night.  I  was  thinking 
of  our  culture  and  our  enlightenment.  I  was 
thinking  of — God  knows  what ;  and  why 
should  I  tell  you  ?  I'm  sorry,'  he  said,  'that 
we're  all  breaking  up  to-day.  I  wish  we 
could  have  kept  the  party  together  for  a  little 
longer.  I  don't  know  what  I  shall  do.  I 
can't  stop  here  ;  I  shan't  go  to  London — I 
hate  London.  I  had  almost  resolved,  an 
hour  ago,  to  go  off  to  Italy  with  Herbert.' 

'  By  way  of  finding  some  duty  to  do  ? ' 
asked  Miss  Merton  quietly. 

'  I  have  no  duties,'  said  Laurence.  '  Didn't 
Herbert  very  truly  tell  us  so  last  night  ? 
But  in  Italy  I  should  at  least  forget  that  I 
ever  might  have  had  any.  And  I  should  be 
then,  at  any  rate,  with  a  congenial  friend. 
Herbert  and  I,  you  see,  are  two  fools.  We 
both  of  us  want  to  pray,  and  we  neither  of  us 
can.' 


364  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

There  was  a  long  pause.  At  last  Miss 
Merton  said  with  some  embarrassment,  stoop- 
ing as  she  did  so  to  smell  a  red  geranium  : 

'  I'm  sure  I  wish  I  could  be  of  any  use  to 
you ;  but  really  I  don't  quite  see  how  I  can.' 

There  was  another  pause.  At  last 
Laurence  said  in  a  very  low  tone  : 

'  I  cannot  pray,  because  I  do  not  believe 
in  God.     Will  you  pray  for  me  ?  ' 

Miss  Merton  turned  and  looked  at 
him  with  a  soft,  serious  smile. 

'  I  did  last  night,  if  you  wish  very  much 
to  know,'  she  said,  and  her  cheek  grew  slowly 
tinted  with  an  unconscious  blush. 

*  Did  you  ? '  exclaimed  Laurence  with  a 
sudden  eagerness.  '  Then,  if  you  cared 
enough  for  me  to  do  that,  will  you  care 
enough  for  me  to  do  something  far  better  than 
praying  for  me  ?  Will  you — '  he  said, 
pausing  and  looking  at  her  ;  '  will  you — 
But  at  that  instant  the  gong  for  breakfast 
sounded,  and  the  sentence  died  unfinished. 
Both  he  and  she  were  perhaps  a  little  grate- 
ful for  this  interruption.  It  relieved  a  sudden 
sense  of  shyness  that  had  become  painful,  and 
to  all  intents  and  purposes  their  looks  had 
already  said  all  that  need  be  said.  It  might, 
both  felt,  be  securely  left  to  find  its  way  into 
words  at  a  more  convenient  season.      In  ano- 


BOOK   V.     CHAPTER  11.  365 

ther  moment  they  were  in  the  midst  of  that 
most  matter-of  fact  bustle  that  precedes  in 
country-houses  the  settHng  down  to  breakfast 
of  a  large  party. 

'  Well,  Mr.  Laurence,'  exclaimed  Lady 
Ambrose,  '  all  pleasant  things  come  to  an 
end  at  last.  But  this  visit  to  you  has  really 
been  positively  delightful.  And  now,  you 
must  be  careful  not  to  forget  me — that  we  are 
expecting  you  in  September  in  Gloucester- 
shire, to  take  part  in  our  private  theatricals. 
By-the-by,'  she  added,  sinking  her  voice  to 
a  fit  solemnity,  '  I  think  I  told  you,  didn't  I, 

how  ill  the  poor  Duchess  of  had  been 

last  week,  though  she's  better  now,  I  am 
happy  to  hear  this  morning.  Ham — tongue 
— pigeon-pie — omelette,'  she  went  on,  as  she 
sat  down  at  the  table  ;  '  why,  amongst  all  this 
host  of  good  things,  I  don't  know  really  what 
to  choose.  Well,  suppose,  Mr.  Laurence, 
you  were  to  bring  me  just  the  little — least  bit 
of  omelette.  My  dear,'  she  whispered  to 
Miss  Merton,  who  was  on  one  side  of  her, 
'  what  a  dreadful  blowing-up  Mr.  Herbert 
gave  us  last  night,  didn't  he  ?  Now  that, 
you  know,  I  think  is  all  very  well  in  a 
sermon,  but  in  a  lecture,  where  the  things  are 
supposed  to  be  taken  more  or  less  literally, 
I  think  it  is  a  little  out  of  place.' 


366  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  Did  you  say  just  now,'  said  Leslie,  who 
found  himself   on    the    other    side    of   Lady 

Ambrose,    '  that   the    Duchess    of  was 

ill?' 

'  Oh,  it  was  just  something  I  was  telling 
Mr.  Laurence,'  said  Lady  Ambrose  coldly. 
*  She's  much  better  now,  thank  you.  Do  you 
know  her  ? ' 

'She's  my  aunt,'  said  Leslie. 

Lady  Ambrose  turned  round  and  looked 
Leslie  full  in  the  face.  As  she  looked,  a 
smile  began  to  dimple  her  cheek,  and  light 
up  her  sweet  grey  eyes. 

'  You  dont  say  so  ! '  she  exclaimed  at 
last.  '  Why,  of  course  you  are.  How  stupid 
of  me  not  to  have  found  that  out  before.  To 
be  sure — you  are  the  redoubtable  Eton  boy, 
who  made  such  a  dreadful  commotion  at 
Daleham  by  wanting  to  run  away  with  the 
nursery  governess.  And  to  think  that  I  have 
only  discovered  you  at  this  last  moment,  when 
we  are  all  of  us  going  to  say  good-bye ! ' 

*  Your  carriage  is  at  the  door,  my  Lady,' 
said  a  servant. 

'  Already  !' said  Lady  Ambrose.  'How 
time  flies !  Dr,  Jenkinson,  you  and  I  are 
going  to  the  train  together,  I  believe.  And 
now,  Mr.  Leslie,'  she  went  on,  '  Mr.  Laurence 


BOOK   V.     CHAPTER  II.  367 

Is  coming  to  us,  in  September,  for  some  pri- 
vate theatricals.  I  don't  know  if  you  do 
anything  in  that  way  yourself.  But  perhaps 
if  you  are  in  England,  and  have  no  better 
engagements,  you  will  come  with  him.  At 
any  rate,  if  you  won't,  please  to  remember  I 
shall  think  it  very  ill-natured  of  you.' 

*  Thank  you,'  said  Leslie,  smiling,  '  I  am 
not  ill-natured.' 

'  I'm  quite  ready,  Lady  Ambrose,  if  you 
are,'  said  Dr.  J enkinson  briskly  ;  'and  now, 
Laurence,'  he  said,  as  he  was  standing  in  the 
portico,  whilst  Lady  Ambrose  was  getting 
into  the  carriage,  'good-bye  ;  I've  had  a  most 
pleasant  visit.  But  as  to  your  Utopia,  your 
ideal  of  the  future — '  he  added  confidentially, 
'  it  has  been  said,  foolishly  enough,  that  God 
was  the  Brocken-phantom  of  self,  projected 
on  the  mists  of  the  non-ego.  Well — your 
Utopia  was  the  Brocken-phantom  of  the 
present,  projected  on  the  mists  of  the  imprac- 
ticable. It  was  simply  the  present  with  its 
homelier  details  left  out.  Good-bye — ^good- 
bye.' 

*  Then  in  that  case,'  said  Laurence,  as 
he  bade  adieu  to  the  Doctor,  '  it  is  a  comfort 
to  know  from  you  that  the  Present,  as  it  is,  is 
the  highest  state  of  things  conceivable.' 


368  THE  NEW  REPUBLIC. 

'  Good-bye,'  said  Lady  Ambrose,  with  a 
smile  in  her  beautiful  frank  eyes.  '  Good-bye, 
Mr.  Leslie,  and  mind  that  you  don't  forget 
September.' 


THE    END. 


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